Setubal City Council and TML have installed a secure, covered bicycle parking facility at the city's new Transport Interface. It was inaugurated on June 3 and only operated that day.
It was designed from EMEL's experience with BiciParks and, therefore, even though it has a different name, it has many similarities with the Lisbon system of closed bicycle parking. It is called BICIbox, is part of the new Setúbal Transport Interface (ITS) and allows you to store your bicycle safely when you arrive in the city. It was inaugurated on June 3, on World Bicycle Day, but since then has never been used. A technological configuration in the equipment has yet to be completed.
The bicycle can be part of our multimodal daily life, allowing us to solve those last kilometers where the train doesn't arrive and where the bus takes too long. In fact, many people seek soft mobility - category of which the bicycle is part but also the scooter or the skateboard - as a complement to public transport and that is why the presence of these types of vehicles near train stations is so frequent in several cities. In Setubal, the recent Transport Interface (which we will talk about later) now has a Bolt scooter and bike sharing point, with a workshop self-service for any bicycle and even with a BICIbox.
A BICIbox is a large closed and covered "box" where you can store bicycles inside. In the specific case of the BICIbox installed in Setúbal, it has capacity for 12 bicycles conventional format, parked in two levels. The structure, being closed, can be opened with the simple swipe of a card NavigatorSimilar to what happens with the BiciParks in Lisbon. The difference is that in Setúbal the access mode doesn't seem to be stabilized yet:
- will it be necessary to load a free BICIbox "pass" on the Navegante card?
- will it be just by swiping the Navegante card to unlock the door, even if there is no pass there?
- will the BICIbox service be available only for those who have a specific Navigator Pass, for example, the mode Municipal of Setubal?
Transportes Metropolitanos de Lisboa (TML), manager of the Navegante ticketing system, tells us that its idea is that the BICIbox will work with any card Navigator and without any monthly activationThat is, it would be enough to have the card where you usually charge the pass, pass it on the sensor attached to the structure and, thus, unlock the doors. He also tells us that initially it was intended that the BICIbox would only work with the activation of a specific pass, which would be free of charge - this is the model of the BiciParks in Lisbon, where it is necessary to activate the BiciPark service in the Navegante/Lisboa Viagem card at an EMEL service station; a process that is time consuming.
But, if TML seems to want the BICIbox to be as easy to use as possible, at the same time it refers us to Setúbal City Hall, to whom all the responsibilities of the "regulatory issues"The decision on how the BICIbox should work is up to you. "We are working on the technical aspects to get the BICIbox up and running soon"TML added in its clarification. Setúbal City Hall did not respond at the time of publication of this article. The BICIbox was built under the scope of the European project called Smarthubs with the municipality of Setubal; the equipment is from the Portuguese manufacturer Biciway.
Lisboa Para Pessoas tried to use the BICIbox but without success. A security guard at Setubal Transport Interface (ITS) tells us that never seen anyone use that structure. We passed the Navigator card through the reader, heard a noise, but no door was unlocked. On the outside of the "box" you can read the following message: "Load the Personalized Navigator card with the required title". We then went to Espaço Navegante, the passenger support center of Carris Metropolitana, which is also managed by TML, but nobody could help us. We searched the Setúbal City Hall and TML websites for any indication about the use of that equipment, but we only found the information that it had been inauguratedThe idea was that it would already be in operation.
In addition to the secure, covered bike parking, the Smarthub project involved the installation of nine Shefield-type parking lots outside, with capacity for at least 18 bikes - many of which were occupied by Bolt vehicles. There is also a cyclists' support station for minor repairs, which is free to use and provides various tools (there was one already missing); and a parking and loading dock for Bolt scooters, which allows them to be stowed in the public space.
