Oli bike system launched on 3rd of April 2022 in Oldenburg
The future public bicycle rental system of the city of Oldenburg now has a name: "OLi-Bike". “Short, easy to understand and related to Oldenburg. That was important to us when we chose the name,” explains Damaris Böhm, who is responsible for the project at the city of Oldenburg. The branding of the bicycles, which was developed by the project team, ensures that the whole thing is visually appealing.
© Bremer Tageszeitungen AG
The official starting signal for OLi-Bike was given on Sunday, April 3, 2022, as part of the "Hallo Fahrrad" event. "Hallo Fahrrad" is organized every year by Oldenburg Tourismus und Marketing GmbH and officially heralds the bicycle season. Since then, the bikes can be used throughout the city. The journeys start and end in the so-called flex zone and also at virtual stations that are set up at central points. Borrowing and returning works flexibly and conveniently via app, website or telephone call. Mario Brokate, project manager at the operator of OLi-Bike, Bremer Tageszeitungen AG, explains the advantage of the virtual stations: "If we determine during operation that a station location is unfavourable or that another station should be added, then we are able to do this to be realized within a very short time. This allows us to flexibly adapt the system.”
© Bremer Tageszeitungen AG
Combination of bike and bus
Verkehr und Wasser GmbH came out as the winner to become the mobility partner for the system. “Buses and bicycles can be an alternative to private cars, both individually and together. We, therefore, want to strengthen the combination of bus and bike for fast and climate-friendly door-to-door mobility and are pleased to be able to offer our regular customers a further advantage in using environmentally friendly means of transport with job and MIA tickets," explains Morell Predoehl, authorized signatory of Verkehr und Wasser GmbH, the partnership. Thanks to the cooperation, the holders of JobTickets and MIA/MIAplus tickets can use the rental bikes for half an hour per rental without any additional fees. This also applies to several rentals per day. The city of Oldenburg is also pleased about the cooperation. dr Norbert Korallus, Head of the Office for Climate Protection and Mobility, sees this as "creating an important interface for promoting multimodal, environmentally-friendly mobility."
BITS project
The OLi-Bike bike-sharing scheme is one of the projects implemented by the City of Oldenburg as part of the BITS project and is thus partly funded through the Interreg North Sea Region Programme. The City of Oldenburg entered the BITS project as a partner in June 2021.
This article is also available in German: https://www.oldenburg.de/startseite/leben-umwelt/verkehr/radverkehr/oeffentliches-fahrradverleihsystem/oli-bike.html