The popular Dublin Bikes scheme has run up losses of €2.1 million in just three years, Dublin Live can reveal.
The bicycle rental project had 115 stations across Dublin in 2018 and 42,000 subscribers in 2021. Half of Dublin Bikes fleet became electric in an attempt to attract more customers in March last year.
The cost of an annual subscription to is €35 for the normal bikes and €60 for the e-bikes. A three day ticket will set you back €5 while a one day ticket costs €3.50.
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The scheme, which was launched in 2019 and has been widely heralded as a success, has been returning annual losses of around €200,000 for many years which has stalled expansion. Dublin City Council covers the losses which have been growing over recent years.
A total of €292,275 was lost in 2019, followed by €972,556 in 2020 and €828,924 last year. Over the three years, just under €2.1 million was lost and the scheme is projected to lose a further €623,219 this year, according to a response from DCC given to Independent Councillor Nial Ring.
The main expenditure of the scheme is the maintenance of the bikes which has been rising. It cost €2,450,960 in 2019 and is expected to cost €2,578,219 this year.
The Covid-19 pandemic seemed to have an effect on the money collected via subscriptions as they dropped from €1,486,699 in 2019 to €1,267,581 in 2020 before dropping to €1,090,868 in 2021.
Cllr Ring, who is favour of the project, said: "We have to take a cost benefit approach here. This is costing a fair amount every year and obviously during the pandemic the rentals and the advertising income was down but now it is settling down again.
"It is a great scheme. It gets people on the bikes and with the bike infrastructure in the city now, that is to be encouraged... It is not just a money pit that we are throwing money into."
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