JCDecaux's self-service bikes surpass a milestone - 600 million rentals worldwide

JCDecaux SA (Euronext Paris: DEC), the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide and number one in self-service bike rental scheme, announces that its self-service bikes have now been hired more than 600 million times worldwide since the launch of the scheme.
 
With almost 15 years of international experience, JCDecaux’s 52,000 bikes are a feature of the urban landscape in 88 cities across 13 countries in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Thanks to 600 employees working tirelessly to offer unrivalled service, 700,000 long-term subscribers and 3.3 million occasional users each year ride more than 1.3 billion kilometres on JCDecaux’s self-service bikes, with each bike being used up to eight times each day.
 
As a pioneer in eco-friendly mobility, JCDecaux has expanded its mobility services to reach record numbers of rentals, whilst maintaining a positive relationship with users. In 13 October 2016, the Customer Relations Department of Cyclocity – JCDecaux's bike rental service – won the Customer Service of the Year award for 2017 in the "Individual Transport" category for the second consecutive year, a testament to an effective organisation and the excellence of its services.
 
Providing a real complement to public transport, JCDecaux’s bikes have proven to improve the quality of city life and to optimise travel options, in line with current environmental and public health targets. Their success is based on the early decision to generalise this service and to facilitate its access in order to increase bike use in cities: carefully tailored pricing strategy, payment by credit cards, use with other public transport cards, online payment and instructions in foreign languages on the terminals. This is also the result of delivering city-wide networks, reliable equipment, high quality maintenance and an effective system to regulate the distribution of bikes, as well as a high quality Customer Relations Department, which has been an NF-certified "Customer Relations" Department since July 2014. To conclude, the range of short-term (day) and long-term (month or year) subscription options offer users unique flexibility, whether they are residents, visitors to a city or tourists.
 
The 600 million rentals achieved by JCDecaux’s self-service bikes since 2003 illustrate the development of urban mobility in the 21^st century: environmentally-friendly, shared usage, a limited footprint, beneficial to personal health and affordability. Building on this success, JCDecaux, which strives to continuously anticipate the needs of city authorities and citizens, has continued to innovate. In April 2015 it launched a hybrid bike with a personal removable battery, a self-service electric bike that will make it even easier for more people to get around seamlessly. At the Viva Technology trade fair, from 15 to 17 June 2017, JCDecaux will also unveil a bike with an integrated battery that can be recharged at docking stations. In addition to the bikes, a second revolutionary aspect of bike rental scheme is travel services for users, including journey planning and personalised services via mobile devices and applications. These initiatives are a response to the expectations expressed by users of our self-service bike rental schemes all over the world.
 
* Inference Operations study – Viséo CI – May to July 2016 – More info at www.escda.fr.

Jean-Charles Decaux, Co-CEO of JCDecaux, said: "We are very proud of the success of our self-service bikes. By hitting the landmark number of 600 million rentals, our self-service bike systems confirm the users' ever-growing enthusiasm for this user-friendly and ecological scheme. Thanks to the work of the JCDecaux teams, who provide rigorous maintenance and optimised regulation of all of the systems on a daily basis, an average of five self-service bikes are rented every two seconds, in the world. With this innovative scheme, which resulted from an overall analysis of travel options and quality of urban life, JCDecaux has reinvented cycling in cities. It has made cycling a real alternative form of transport that complements all existing public transport networks, meeting the needs of local communities with a sustainable solution. This success will reinforce our position as the number one worldwide in self-service bikes, inspiring us with even greater energy and creativity in our drive to further revolutionise the concept of sustainable mobility."