Tartu drops plan to bring private operator into bike-sharing renewal

Tartu city government has rejected a plan to involve a private operator in renewing the city’s struggling bike-sharing service over concerns that fares could rise, ERR reported. At the same time, expected budget cuts mean the city’s support for the service could still be reviewed.

The city is preparing a new procurement process for the service. It has not yet decided whether to buy 500 bicycles at once or 1,000 over several years.

“There are currently about 550 bicycles on the streets. There are both regular and electric bicycles, and they have held up well this season. Our main need is with the next season in mind,” said Roman Meeksa, head of Tartu city transport.

Bike-sharing is a popular service among Tartu residents, but users have noticed that many of the bicycles are in poor condition.

“In my opinion, there have been more of them lately. Two years ago, more bicycles were in working order,” Helen said.

“My chain has broken a couple of times when I was pedalling uphill,” Mio said.

The city also considered handing the service to a private operator instead of repairing and buying bicycles, but officials fear that fares could increase several times. Karl Apsolon, Bolt’s head of scooter operations, said municipalities could subsidise the service, as is done in neighbouring countries.

“Riga is preparing a tender for mechanical bicycles and is looking for a service provider that could handle the operations itself. Riga will probably plan to subsidise the service to keep prices for residents as low as possible or bring them down to that level,” Apsolon said.

Tartu city council opposition members said the city should not reduce its support for bike-sharing as a result of budget cuts. They consider the taxpayer contribution justified.

“I think that if Tartu contributes one million euros to bike-sharing from a 300-million-euro budget, it is entirely reasonable for a European Nordic city to do so,” said Daniel Kõiv, a Tartu city council member from Eesti 200.

Interest among bicycle manufacturers in the Tartu tender is expected to become clear by the middle of next week. The public procurement is expected to be announced during September, and the price of an individual bicycle could remain at a few thousand euros.