Pedalro (Korean: 페달로) is a municipal public bicycle-sharing system operated by Ansan-si, Gyeonggi-do.[1] [2] As of 2020 it had 136 stations[3] in Ansan-si and more than 1,500 public bicycles.[4] [5] It allows people to borrow a bicycle from a bicycle rack and return it at another one.[6]
Pedalro is a compound word of 'pedal',[8] the starting point for transmitting power to the bicycle and 'road (Korean: 길; Chinese: 路)', to traveling by bicycle,[9] meaning of stepping the pedals and running on the road.[10]
In June 2010, Ansan-si was selected as one of the top 10 bicycle hub cities by Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Pedalo service started on May 16, 2013.[11] During the proceeding four-year project period, October 2010 to May 2013, a total project cost of 8,7 billion won was invested in the project, which including renovation or construction of bicycle roads.[12] Ansan-si has subscribed to bicycle insurance every year since 2010, which meant that anyone, including non-residents of Ansan-si who are injured by the accidents from Pedalro uses, could receive insurance benefits.[13] [14] [15] [16] [17] The Pedalo rental service, which started with 1,155 units, continued to grow as much as 2,155 units in 2016, and the number of its users reached 1.57 million in 2019, three times more than 550,000 at the time of launch, establishing itself as one of the representative transportation methods in the region.[18]
However, significant portion of the budget had to be spent every year for bicycle repairs.[19] The number of repairs of broken or damaged bicycles increased almost every year with the record cases, 19,000 in 2015, 21,00, in 2016, 26,000 in 2017, and 27,000 in 2018, declined to 22,000 only in 2019 but surging again to 27,000 cases in the first half of 2020. Meanwhile, promoted maintenance of the bicycles to revitalize the use of Pedalro. It collected 300 broken bicycles and completed repair work for the period of April to May in 2020.[20]
Ansan-si announced that the Pedalo service would cease in 2021, stating that the bicycle aging caused repair costs to increase unsustainably. Instead, the city will promote commercial services such as the Kakao T Bike, a shared bicycle equipped with GPS, which can be rented or returned anywhere on the street without a need for a bicycle station.