Velobike

Velobike (Велобайк) is a bicycle-sharing system run by the city of Moscow, Russia.

History
The system was opened in 2013. In 2015 the 1st generation of the system was fully replaced by the Smoove-based solution using B’TWIN bicycles.

In 2016, e-bikes were added to the service. In 2018 e-bikes were replaced by a fleet of pedelecs.

In 2018 there were 430 parking stations in the system with 4,300 bicycles. The system had 424,736 users registered and 4,25 million trips annually.

In 2023, the new "2.0" e-bikes were introduced. Before 2023, Velobike operated as a docking station based system only, but with "2.0" e-bikes, it added dockless option too. The "2.0" became four times more popular than standard, station-based bikes, both e-bikes and standard bikes. As of 2023, more than 780 stations were available for users, around 10 thousand bikes were available, with 4 thousand of them being electric.

Overview


A user has to pay by a payment card (Visa, Mastercard, Mir) for a subscription to the system either at the web site, mobile app or the Velobike's station terminal (where available). Access to a bicycle is arranged by account number (user ID) / PIN pair. A Troika transport card can also be used instead of the account number.

The system has been sponsored by a number of Russian banks. First, by the Bank of Moscow, then by the Sberbank and later on by the VTB Bank. The capital costs are covered by a sponsor while operating costs are covered by the city.

Subscription plans
User can buy subscription on day/week/month or seasonal plans to unlock savings on rides lasting one hour or less. There is an additional charge for time over the limit.