Madrid Municipal Transport Company

Mar 18, 2023

March 18, 2023 Almost a decade after the birth of Bicimad, on March 7 the renewed municipal bicycle rental service Madrid, which has been managed for a few years by the Madrid Municipal Transport Company (EMT). To celebrate the premiere of new Bicimadthe Madrid City Council has decided that the service will be free until the summer, however, the first days of operation are not going very well. start off on the wrong foot Taking advantage of the fact that the new Bicimad has already been in operation for more than a week, The country has taken stock of a service that promised multiple improvements when all its details were announced a few weeks ago. More bicycles that are more modern and offer more autonomy, more areas where they can be used, greater protection against vandalism, more ease of use through an App and the total free service until July 31. That is the sum of the improvements that have involved an investment of €48.8 million. The problem is that, when it comes to practice, the new Bicimad is not convincing anyone. According to El País, both users and workers of the EMT who manage the service have not stopped complaining since last March 7. The complaints are due to the operation and failures that the Bicimad app is giving, to the problems when it comes to anchoring and unanchoring the bikes in the stations where they must be picked up and left to start and end the trips, to the charge for its use when it is free until a few months from now and even the sighting of bikes parked outside the stations. You only have to see the responses to the latest messages that Bicimad has published in your Twitter account . And we would have to add the disappearance of hundreds of bicycles in just a few days; As El País also points out, 250 of the new bikes have disappeared, but also 250 of the old ones, since, for now, both will coexist until the fleet of 7,500 new bikes is completed. It should be remembered that it is mandatory to leave the bikes in one of the 611 stations intended for it. But just search for “abandoned bicimad” on Twitter to find dozens of photos of these bikes thrown through the streets of the capital. And the collection does not stop growing, despite the fact that many report their location so that Bicimad can collect them and they remain abandoned for days.