Bike hire scheme proves more popular in Athlone than in Mullingar

A public bicycle hire scheme that was introduced in Westmeath's two biggest towns earlier this year has proven to be more than twice as popular in Athlone than in Mullingar.

A meeting heard last Thursday that the pilot scheme operated by Moby Bikes on behalf of Westmeath County Council had been a success, with 2,072 bike hires recorded across the two towns during a six-month period starting on May 1.

However, 65% of those bike hires (1,357) took place in Athlone rather than in the county town.

Athlone also had more than twice as many people availing of the scheme, with 702 individual users compared with 338 in Mullingar.

Council official John Jackson said usage of the scheme by tourists in Athlone was one of the reasons why the take-up was higher there than in Mullingar.

"We found that a lot of tourists were using them in Athlone, which was fantastic. I saw firsthand myself people using them as far out as Moate - hiring them in Athlone and bringing them out on the greenway.

"Athlone was a little bit more spread out in terms of locations for the bikes, and that was a learning for us. To continue with the scheme we'd need to expand a bit more in Mullingar - it's a bit more condensed there."

Athlone Marina during the summer, and the TUS campus during the autumn, were the two busiest bike hire locations in Athlone, while Mullingar Town Park during the summer and, more recently, Mullingar hospital were the busiest hiring sites in the county town.

In his review of the pilot scheme at the December meeting of the council's Environment, Climate Action, Water and Emergency Services committee, Mr Jackson said the number of bikes currently available in the two towns had been reduced for the winter.

Athlone had 40 bikes available for hire through the 'Moby Move' smartphone app during the summer, while there were 30 bikes available in Mullingar, but that was recently reduced to 15 bikes in each town.

Mr Jackson said the local authority would have to seek sponsorship to continue with the scheme on an ongoing basis.

"Going forward, if we want to permanently keep the scheme we will have to consider some kind of sponsorship option because that's what most of the other schemes elsewhere have done. They have a main sponsor, for example Coca Cola (in Galway).

"There is a large Westmeath crest on the backs of the bikes, and that would be an ideal position where, hopefully local, sponsors could get on board (with advertising). That's something we have to look at."

He said that keeping the scheme running permanently in both towns would cost Westmeath County Council around €50,000 per year.

"To keep the scheme permanently we'll have to keep expanding the locations (where bikes can be hired) as well," he remarked.

Mr Jackson said that, while public bike hire schemes had previously been in place in cities such as Dublin, Athlone and Mullingar were the first "rural towns" to adopt a scheme of this kind.

"It had never been done in a rural area, but we decided to pilot it to gauge firsthand if it would work and if the public would take to it."

He said the operator the scheme, Moby Bikes, was "absolutely thrilled" with the take-up of the scheme in the two towns.

July was the busiest month for the scheme in Athlone, with 321 individual bike hires recorded, while the All Ireland Fleadh helped make August the busiest bike hire month in Mullingar (186 hires).

The fact that there hadn't been any significant damage caused to the bikes since the scheme was introduced was also commented upon by Mr Jackson.

"I had people telling me the bikes wouldn't last on the streets, that they'd be damaged or stolen, but that wasn't the experience we had," he said.

"We had very little damage to the bikes. We only really had two or three incidents where a bike was damaged, and even in those incidents it was minor damage."

Councillors welcomed the report on the scheme. "It's brilliant to see how well it's taken off in terms of the usage," said Cllr Paul Hogan.

Green Party Cllr Louise Heavin described the scheme as "hugely successful" and said she had personally found it a convenient way of getting around Athlone at times.

"I think we should be looking for sponsorship (to continue the scheme). It's €1,000 per bike per year, which is not a huge amount for bigger companies.

"We have some great companies in Athlone and I'm sure employees would use them.

“The more bikes we have, moving around, the more use they will get. This was only a trial and I can see it doubling or tripling in usage over a year or two," Cllr Heavin concluded.