Seoul Bike looks for private sector partners to resolve deficit
來源：開云體育app官方網站發布日期：2023-01-26 18:24:42 瀏覽：5
 |
| A person checks a bike from Seoul City's bike-sharing service, Ttareungyi, at a station near City Hall in central Seoul, June 22. Newsis |
By Lee Hae-rin
Seoul's public bike-sharing service, Ttareungyi, or Seoul Bike, plans to carry advertisements on bikes and rental stations to overcome financial difficulties, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, Wednesday. Seoul Bike, which operates 41,500 bikes and 2,677 rental stations across the capital, faces a cumulative deficit surpassing 10 billion won ($7.19 million).
Seoul Facilities Corp. will auction off the advertisements via online public property sales transaction platform Onbid for a week, starting on Thursday.
The names and logos of the winning companies will be displayed on bike frames, signboards at rental stations, as well as the Seoul Bikes mobile app and website under two-year contracts. The minimum bid was set at 640 million won per year and contracts could start as early as next January.
Similarly, Seoul Metro, which operates Subway Lines No. 1 to 8, has been auctioning off the rights to the names of subway stations since 2016 to overcome financial difficulties. The alternative names are written alongside their original ones in brackets at stations and used in announcements.
Seoul Bike has been popular since its official launch in October 2015. About six out of 10 people in the city have used the service and the app-based bike-sharing service has ranked top among the city's sharing services with its satisfaction rate at 97 percent, according to the city's survey last year.
The number of Seoul Bike memberships surpassed 3.61 million, while the total number of times the bikes were used amounted to 117 million as of last month.
However, the public rental service is experiencing a deficit due to low rental fees that do not cover the service's maintenance costs.
The deficit has been increasing from 9 billion won in 2019 to 10.3 billion won in 2021, but the city government has never raised the usage fees for the sake of public interest.
分享：