As opposed to the original plans, private providers can apply for the rental system as well. This decision was made by the city council on Thursday, with the Linke party and the Bürger Bund Bonn not in agreement.

The Stadtwerke Bonn (SWB) - who were planning to be the provider - will now start the selection process through a tendering process. The city council also asked the administration to submit a suitable model to reimburse possibly occurring losses, which could exceed the currently available means in the allocated budget of 400,000 Euro. The tendering process will be phrased in such a way that it is also designed to be of interest for new providers“, said the city council in its proposal.

According to the „Bonner Fahrradmietsystem“ group, which includes employees of Bonn city and the Stadtwerke. In this way the process is more economical and reasonable. The background: At the moment, every private provider could set up a bike rental system anyway, without the necessity of a permit. But it would be more attractive for a private provider to set up such a system of a public bike rental under the roof of the SWB, where possible losses could be mitigated.The already agreed-on criteria remains in place: VRS customers get free minutes and at least 900 bicycles have to be made available in 100 locations.

Holger Schmidt (Linke) expressed worries on behalf of his fraction that the pubic tendering process might lead to a change in some of the already chosen locations and that bikes might be positioned close to those. Also, private providers could waive the stationary ordering terminals and only choose mobile apps. „That would exclude quite a lot of users“, Schmidt is convinced.

Original text: Lisa Inhoffen

Translation: Mareike Graepel