MTI (Hungarian News Agency)/Greenfo
The City Hall of Budapest announced on May 11 that it will launch a large-scale city-bike system in the central part of the Hungarian capital.
The new system will include 1000-1100 bicycles and 70-80 docking stations. It will cover the most densely build-up central part of the city of about 7 square kilometers. The cost of the system is HUF 1.32 billion (EUR 5 million). The system will be installed and managed by Parking Ltd. - a public company in charge of inforcing of the city's parking policy.
The flat part of the city, Pest, will have 60 docking stations, while the flat parts of the hilly Buda side will have 13 docking stations. A docking station will have on the average 22 bikes and will be installed not further than 300-400m from each other on road space allocated for car parking or on pedestrian pavements. Bicycles can be rented on a self-service basis, using bank cards, credit cards, chip cards or mobile telephones. The system will run 24 hours a day, the first 30 minutes will be free-of-charge, and then there will be incremental charging.
Testing will begin in June 2011. The project will be co-financed from European Union funds, based on a project that was submitted in June 2009.
