Budapest, 21 June 2021 – The MOL Bubi public bike-sharing service was relaunched a month ago, on 20 May 2021. During the first month after the restart, the number of registrations was increasing day by day, and previous, multiyear records were broken in the process.
The launch of MOL Bubi garnered considerable attention in 2014, as the first sharing-based transport service was both a novelty and a gap filler at the time. It is no coincidence that Forbes included it in its 2015 selection of the trendiest Hungarian brands. During the period between 2014 and 2020, more than 100 thousand customers gave urban cycling a try in the capital, which was a significant result on which Budapest residents, the Municipality and BKK could justly pride themselves.
Even though the brand name has become well known and MOL Bubi no longer needs an introduction, the revamped service has piqued the interest of many who are on the move in the city to a level never seen before. MOL Bubi fares have become more attractive, while the app and the bikes themselves have been redesigned based on user feedback and tailored to their needs. Yet the most authentic feedback is provided by user reaction: 160 thousand trips were made within a month and at the same time, daily usage level records were broken one after the other. The number of daily trips by public bike exceeded:
• 5,000 on 2 June
• 6,000 on 8 June
• 7,000 on 10 June
• 8,000 on 15 June 2021, setting the daily record of 8,296 trips.
The final units of the fleet planned for the first phase have been assembled bringing the total of available bikes up to 1,200. Owing to the huge public interest, BKK will do its best in ensuring that the 360 optional bicycles contained in the public procurement are added to the fleet as early as possible, possibly in the spring of 2022.
It is not only MOL Bubi that is making strides
Many have tried the public bikes, but even independently from MOL Bubi, more and more people have started to explore the opportunities offered by urban cycling. Even though the number of trips by bicycle usually increases in good weather, counts carried out in the past one month far exceed the data of the previous years. Bike-counters mounted at different locations in the city keep showing record-breaking numbers.
In June, a daily total of 7,660 bike trips was registered through Bem tér, the greatest number ever recorded at this square in the Buda part of the city, while the counter at Hungária körút in Pest recorded 2,200 trips on the busiest day, which is also a record on this section of the ring road. In the first half of June, 24 thousand more bike trips were counted at Bem tér than a year earlier.
