Public e-bike scheme expanding to south Wicklow towns

By Hugh O'Farrell Walsh, The Wicklow People

Public e-bikes are to be introduced in Ashford and Glenealy as part of an ongoing countywide rollout.

The announcement was made during a presentation to district councillors in Wicklow at their September monthly meeting and comes as part of efforts to expand low-carbon transport options for communities across both locations.

Wicklow County Council’s partnership with bike share provider Moby has already seen 100 e-bikes allocated in Bray and Greystones, with 50 installed at strategic locations around Wicklow town in June of this year.

Speaking during the meeting climate officer Mark Costello said the initiative aligns with the council’s Climate Action Plan by providing sustainable transport alternatives.

“Figures from Moby show there were 8,600 rides taken during August with 13,280 km covered with 240 new users signing up to use the scheme.”

“302 fines were also issued, a lot of those were to do with issues around anti-social behaviour. We had nine bikes being thrown into rivers.”

“Moby has informed the climate team within the council that they plan to bring in an app that will automatically fine users for abusing the system or showing poor behaviour.”

“A bike locking feature is also due to be introduced in the coming months, so that the bikes stay within the area they were rented from and to try and combat the number of vandalised bikes which have been reported in recent months.” he added.

Since abandoned e-bikes were causing issues for residents, the operator introduced mapping updates and better user controls to enhance the customer experience.

In response to a query from Cllr Paul O’Brien about the condition of the bikes and whether they could be improved, Mr Costello said that would be reviewed during the retender process next June.

Following a question from Cllr Shane Langrell about the location of the docking stations in Ashford and Glenealy, Mr Costello said they were still being looked at.

“We will work with the district engineers to see how best to move those projects forward. We need to be conscious of bus stops and housing estates in those areas but that will feed into our discussions.”

Moby replaced Bolt as the main contactor to provide the e bike scheme in County Wicklow in 2023.

The roll-out of the Bolt e-bike scheme was initially deemed a success – clocking up 10,758 unique users since the scheme was launched, with 102,945 trips made amounting to a total of 189,492 kilometres, based on the last available figures in August 2024.

However, many users had highlighted issues on social media, including maintenance of the bikes and “damage not showing up on the app”, but also a deterioration in the quality of the bikes, general reliability, and the poor service when it came to the firm’s response to customer complaints.

It is also understood that the firm, which had invested €250,000 into the Bray e-bike scheme, was operating at a financial loss in Bray.

The scheme is due to expand into Arklow at a later date, with further growth planned based on demand.

Once fully launched across the county, customers will be able to rent an e-bike in one town (e.g. Greystones) and park it in another (e.g. Bray) or even cycle to and park in County Dublin, where Moby also operates a public e-bike scheme.