Phuket share-bike kicks off
The bicycle provider for the share bikes project, Ofo, announced today (September 20) that their company, with the help of Phuket local government, are ready to release the first phase of 1,000 bicycles for the project. From October 1 for one month, Ofo will also offer free rides as a starting gift promotion for the project.
Noppadol Tujinda, General Manager of Ofo Thailand, said that Phuket is the first province of Thailand where Ofo is implementing a bike project as part of Phuket’s Smart City plan.
“Ofo is proud to be a part of the team that is part of the long-term development of transportation in Phuket,” said the General Manager.
“Ofo bicycles are designed to travel point to point which covers between 1 and 5 kilometres distance and can help cut down the expense of transportation and solve long-term parking space issues. Bike Sharing is a system that combines bicycle renting and technology through a mobile application. Renters can unlock the bike by just scanning a QR code while the application also shows the maps and specific parking area near the destination.”
“The rental fee starts from 5 Baht per 30 minutes with a 99 Baht deposit. The App provided supports the payment as well.”
Phuket is one of the few cities around the world where Ofo is offering the smart lock technology. The first phase of 1,000 bikes will be spread around many spots including Prince of Songkhla University, Merlin Hotel, Pearl Hotel, The Tint at Phuket Town Hotel, Limelight Avenue Phuket mall, Sengho Bookstore, Robinson mall, Bangniew Shrine, Phuket Rajabhat University, Sapan Hin park and Phuket old town area.
PHOTO: South China Morning Post
“Ofo is the world’s number 1 share bike provider that continues to grow rapidly offering the service in 170 cities from several countries across the globe, such as China, USA, Britain, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Kazakstan, Japan and Singapore, with more than 10 million bicycles altogether. Our bikes are used more than 25 million times per day.”
He said that Thailand is the main target for Ofo in South East Asia thanks to its large population of 70 million people with about 700,000 university students and a lot of tourists, especially Chinese, that pour into Thailand – at least 7 million people per year.
PHOTO: Bloomberg
“Ofo, earlier in August, had its pilot project at Thammasat University, Rangsit campus and received a lot of good feedback. There are about one thousand Ofo bikes on the campus these days. People who are interested to have an Ofo station at their property can contact 02 026 3671”
On September 24, the company will also participate in the “Phuket Car Free Day” to promote a campaign aiming to reduce the use of cars and try using bicycles instead.
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