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Smart City Prayagraj: Bike sharing system to come to town soon
The idea is to connect residential localities with markets, etc, officials said. The plan is to have 75 docking stations across the city with 10 bikes each.
In its ‘smart city’ avatar, Prayagraj is all set to have a Public Bike/Bicycle Sharing (PBS) System with automatic smart locks. This eco-friendly mode of transport will be for the common man as well as for tourists, to be used within city limits.
The bikes, to be operated through a smart app embellished with a unique identification code for each of the bicycles, will be available for use on a rental basis. The app will allow a user to take the bike from a select PBS docking station for a fixed time and by paying the rental upfront.
Once the use of the bicycle is over, it can be returned to the nearest docking station, mostly located near a bus stand, private taxi station or a railway station, which will enable the person to carry on with his/her journey further, officials said. However, no date has yet been given for the formal start of this facility.
A vision of this proposed PBS system was presented before the Prayagraj Smart City Advisory Forum in a meeting held at Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) on Monday. CEO of Prayagraj Smart City Ltd Rajiv Ranjan presented details of the ongoing work and the proposed projects to be undertaken as part of the Smart City initiative in the city. The meeting was attended by mayor Abhilasha Gupta, MLA Allahabad North Harshvardhan Bajpai and Mission Manager of Smart City project SK Sinha, besides other members of the forum.
“The bike share system allows people to borrow a bike from a dock and return it at another dock. Docks are special bike racks that lock the bike, and only release it by computer control. The user enters payment information, and the computer unlocks a bike. The user returns the bike by placing it in the dock, which locks it in place,” explained Ranjan.
The idea is to connect residential localities with markets, etc, officials said. The plan is to have 75 docking stations across the city with 10 bikes each. In the first phase, 30 docking stations with 300 bicycles will be installed, while the remaining 45 stations with 450 bicycles will be installed gauging the success of Phase1, as also the acceptance of the project by citizens.
Some of the sites identified for setting up the docking stations include Nagar Nigam Prayagraj, All Saints Cathedral, Girls High School and College, Hotel Harsh Ananda, Sardar Patel Marg, Hotel Allahabad Regency, PD Tandon Park, Chandra Shekhar Azad Park Gate number 3 and 6 besides Anand Bhawan and Allahabad University among others.
Details of various projects like augmentation and upgradation of the existing streetlights, strengthening the ICCC system were also shared with the members. The members also gave their suggestions including installing tracking devices on the bikes of the proposed PBS system, undertaking a road-widening exercise keeping the traffic load in mind, etc.
