A couple of days ago, Zoomcar — the startup which is offering self-driving car rental service, launched bicycle sharing service named Pedl.
The tech-enabled bicycle sharing service, which the company claims is India’s first, will provide the service at a charge of ₹10 for 30 minutes.
After months of planning and testing, the company started the service with about 500 bicycles across three cities – Bangalore, Chennai, and Kolkata. It plans to have bicycles at every 50 to 100 meters in the cities that it has established its presence. The company eventually plans on having at least 10,000 cycles on the road by the end of this year.
The service can be used for short trips around the city, and local use cases such as grocery shopping, errand running, and last mile commuting.
The bicycles that are offered by the company comes equipped with real-time GPS tracking, solar battery charging and built-in alarms. They also have custom designed aluminium alloy frames and drum brakes, anti-slip chains, airless solid tyres and height adjustable seats.
Zoomcar is hoping that bicycle rentals end up having a greater impact on Indian users than what was witnessed in China. While many bicycle companies offer their users a model where they can drop a bicycle anywhere and it gets automatically locked, Pedl is planning to have drop points where bicycles can be easily parked.
The process of using the service is simple. You go to a PEDL location, pay via Paytm, and drop the cycle off when done at any of the PEDL locations. Zoomcar is expecting to cross 10,000 cycles on road in 2017, with larger expansion plans to follow in 2018.