Sevici

Sevici is the name of a community bicycle program in Seville inaugurated in April 2007, similar to the Vélo'v service in Lyon and Vélib' in Paris. Its purpose is to cover the small and medium daily routes within the city in a climate friendly way, almost without pollution (specially the emission of finest particulate matter), roadway noise, traffic congestion and to reclaim the urban streets with non-polluting vehicles.

Operation

The city council and JCDecaux manage and maintain the system. To use it one must acquire a yearly or weekly membership. Before the end of 2008 more than 250 stations and 2500 bikes will be available. The stations are situated throughout the inner-city with a distance of around 200 metres between each one, with many situated next to public transport stops to allow for intermodal use. The bikes can be borrowed from, and returned to, any station in the system, making it suitable for one way travel. Each station has between 10 and 40 parking slots to fix and lock the bicycle.

To borrow a bike one simply swipes the contactless RFID-card at a service station to be personally identified by the system, which then unlocks a bike from the support frame. Bicycles can be used for the first 30 minutes with no extra cost. The first subsequent hour costing 0.50 Euros and afterwards 1 euro per hour for the yearly pass, and double the cost for the weekly pass. To return a bicycle one simply places the bike in a spare slot at a station, the bike is recognised automatically and is locked into place.

Subscription

The yearly subscription costing 10 euros requires an address where the pass is sent, whereas the weekly alternative (5 euros) can be obtained directly at any station by presenting a credit card. In both cases 150 euros is authorised in order to deter theft. (If a debit card is used, the 150 euros will be taken immediately and returned at the end of the hire period.)

When a weekly membership is purchased the user is provided with a member code to be used at the stations rather than an RFID card, making the service immediately available to tourists.

ee also

*Community bicycle program

External links

* [http://www.sevici.es sevici.es] Spanish only
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzBZpOHksWI Video analysis of the bicycle in Spanish]