• The self-service all-electric bike service was launched a month ago in Marseille.

  • He has had some difficulties in recent days.

  • In question: the lack of electrification of the terminals, and nearly 300 bicycles “in nature”.

It was December 19.

At dawn, the employees of Inurba Mobility, a company with which the Aix-Marseille metropolis had concluded the contract for the deployment of all-electric self-service bicycles to replace the old mechanics, embarked on the installation of the new terminals.

A month later, and the installation of the first 100 stations (out of the 200 planned for the end of February), users report difficulty in finding available bicycles, particularly in recent days.

A "small degradation of service in recent days" that Eric Mortier, director of Citybike, the operating company, does not deny.

Of the hundred stations installed, only 45 are electrified,” he says.

A problem for these bikes, which run on electric power, and which forces the 25 employees to manually change the batteries.

Nearly 300 bicycles “in nature”

Added to this are bicycles scattered around the city – and not on a terminal – that employees must struggle to find.

Monday morning, more than 270 of them, out of the 800 put into service, had "disappeared in the wild".

A hundred are still missing and the task promises to be difficult.

"When the batteries are completely empty, the GPS location stops", informs Eric Mortier.

"We come back to a free floating activity," accuses Jérémie, an ex-employee whose contract was terminated during his trial period.

“I was recruited to be a regulator (distribute the bikes to the terminals, basically) and not a swapper (change the battery, recover the scattered bikes).

We were pressured to perform.

When, with my colleague, we complained about work that was not on our job description, we were fired”, denounces this former taxi driver who describes a “completely disorganized” service and a “lack of bicycles”.

A “non-event” commented the director, for whom it simply did not fit with these two employees.



However, the deployment at the rate of ten to twelve stations per week continues and should allow the ramp-up of the service after “this running-in time”, agrees Eric Mortier.

Some technological and computer adjustments have also been made, in particular to avoid abandoning the bike outside the limits.

Like the restoration of the systematic authentication of the means of payment with the banks, which, in fine, made it possible to rent electric bicycles with stolen cards and even if opposition had been made.

Finally, Enedis is continuing its work to electrify terminals.

And that takes time, as often in Marseille.

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  • Company

  • Mobility

  • Marseilles

  • Paca

  • Bike