A biking tour attended by journalists was held in the capital on Friday to symbolically inaugurate an urban scheme on using smart bike facilities in Tehran, a pilot plan that will be officially set in motion in a couple of weeks.
The tour began at 7 a.m. from Iranshahr Street to Moqaddam House Museum. Over 600 smart bicycles were shared between the journalists participating in the event, IRNA reported.
Mohsen Pour-Seyed-Aqaei, managing director of Transportation and Traffic Organization of Tehran Municipality, noted that since the preliminary studies on the capital's capacity for the plan started over a year ago, "the smart bike facility has been proved to be a viable solution to the city's air pollution and traffic problem."
In complementary words, Hossein Qasemi, the executive manager of the pilot plan, said the smart bikes enjoy resistant tires and powerful brake rotors.
"The bikes are also equipped with a GPS system for remote allocation and a digital panel showing the speed, the covered distance, the estimated time to the destination, the pedaled path and the consumed calories."
According to Qasemi, emergency help and maintenance services are set to be provided with the least possible delay.
"To ease access for users, special spaces will be marked throughout the city as bike parking areas."
In case a bicycle is abandoned more than 24 hours, it will be transferred to the nearest parking place, Qasemi added.
Besides observing the regular driving rules, the users should note that biking in highways and also in rainy and snowy days is prohibited.
"We estimate that 250,000 bicycles would do for the capital."
Enthusiasts can enroll (on a website, which will be announced later) with a certain amount of fee and download the pertaining application on their mobile phones, he said.
According to the rules, the bikes are only offered to applicants between 16 to 75 years of age.
Traffic jams and the resulting air pollution in a metropolis like Tehran has compelled the officials to think of different measures to alleviate the growing scourge.
Renovating the public transportation fleet and employing an approach to motivate the residents to use the facilities instead of private cars, as well as the current bike plan have been among the solutions so far adopted.
Once launched successfully, the scheme might offer a breathing space ahead of the cold season when pollution levels rise to dangerous levels due to the phenomenon of inversion.
The touring event was held to mark the Journalist's Day in August 8.
