It will no longer be necessary to take photos of the bikes, there will also be stands, says head Rekol
You have completed the Rekol na Lítačku pilot operation. How do you rate him?
Definitely positive. It turns out that bicycles are simply a very good alternative to transport around the city and in some parts even this is the fastest. The perception of people riding bikes has also changed. It has long been the case that a cyclist equals a soaked guy in a leotard.
How many new users have brought you cooperation with the city?
Currently, almost 17,000 of them are connected via Lítačka. Overall, the number of cyclists in the metropolis has doubled in the last year, according to the capital, which we have, of course, felt.
But the big increase was probably mainly due to the pandemic.
Yes, I think a lot of people just didn’t want to take public transport. People have already returned to public transport, Rekola mainly uses the “last mile”. It often happens that Praguers use all modes of transport at once – they come by car to the metro station, take public transport and leave the last piece by bike.
Rekola could have been a part of Prague Integrated Transport much earlier. In 2017, a tender was announced for the operation of a bikesharing with a transport company in Prague, in which Rekola participated and from which it was excluded under strange circumstances, which was also checked by the Office for the Protection of Competition. What is the difference in the current cooperation?
There is a fundamental shift in the perception of cycling. The original tender was advertised incorrectly. It was for a station system that would not be so much used and would not pay off. Even financially, it’s millions better now, then it was a hundred to five years and build bus-sized stations. Now it is so that all providers still have to try to get riders. The ceiling so far is two million and the city costs twelve crowns for one exhausted ride.
A friend told me that she had not been able to link her account with Lítačka. Another time, I stood by the bike for about ten minutes because the application was stuck. Do you know about such partial problems? And how do you try to solve it?
Yes, we know about it and we have some customer care (customer care, note Red.). I recommend using our customer chat, where someone will always advise you. We all also go to Rekoly and we know that some partial problems can happen. For your friend, it was probably a problem with our servers, we’ve been making technological changes lately, and there’s been a problem with that. You know, even that code is written by people, not robots, and people can sometimes get confused.
Praguers see discards on the ground as a long-term problem. Could the obligation to return the wheels to the stands, for example, help?
Prague is our only operation with so-called free floating in this, ie the bikes can return almost anywhere. The user needs to take a picture before returning, but unfortunately we will not affect the fact that the wheels will fall, even due to the strong wind that is blowing this year. In the future, however, we are also planning a station model in the capital, but we have to build infrastructure for that – what we are negotiating with the city districts and it already works in Prague 3. We do not want Praguers to walk half a kilometer for a shared bike.
How does it work in Prague 3?
The troika built several storage places. It has appeared in the media that some town halls are unable to negotiate with a scooter provider, such as Lime. Prague 3 managed it and the providers respect the station model in the given area. The market is gradually cultivating.
In contrast to Vienna, for example, Prague is known for its hilly terrain, which is not always suitable for cyclists. How is it in the metropolis with elektroRekoly? Do you plan to expand their number?
We had a hundred of them in the fleet, but it was not economically and actually physically available for us. Now there are no e-bikes in the metropolis. But we are looking for a new economic model and in some medium term we would like to use electric bicycles again. In addition, Median’s latest research on cycling in Prague has shown that less than 10 percent of Praguers perceive the capital’s hillyness as the biggest barrier to driving around Prague more frequently.
As a former startup, you are definitely analyzing a large amount of data. Do you have any interesting outputs from them?
Definitely yes, the most interesting finding for me personally was the finding that it really became more of a means of transport in Prague. We can see it in terms of loans, most often people go to and from work and they are rather shorter loans. On the contrary, on weekends, people rent a bike for a longer trip.
What other news do you plan for the future?
A recent novelty is now the public testing of the automatic return of the bike to the repoints, ie without further photography of the bike. We want to make it easier for people to ride a shared bike.
Did Rekola already make money on herself?
Long time ago. Of course, we imagined the year before last differently. Last year, we earned the same as before the covid, ie about 26 million. What hit us the most was that we had bikes ordered at the beginning of the year, but in reality they came much later.
Do you plan to stay in the company or do you have a possible sale in mind?
I still enjoy it. If we were selling a cell phone, we would be at a stage when the original Motorola came to market. Our shared bikes are not in the “smartphone” phase yet. If, for example, a strategic partner appeared, we would be talking about Rekol’s further growth, rather than their complete sale.