Texas A&M switches bike-share system

The Eagle

By Kenny Wiley

Published: November 27, 2018

After parting ways with its current on-campus bike share system company, Texas A&M University Transportation Services will switch gears to a new vendor in January 2019.

VeoRide, a micro-mobility share company based in West Lafayette, Ind. and Chicago, will send 2,500 bikes to College Station in early January. The agreement will allow the university to continue offering a dockless bike share service on campus.

VeoRide operates on 20 other campuses and communities around the United States, including Texas State University, the University of North Texas and the University of Arkansas. VeoRide communications director Linda Jackson said that the company hopes to have the bikes available for use as soon as mid-January.

"We are excited to partner with VeoRide to continue the bike share program at Texas A&M," Transportation Services Associate Vice President Peter Lange said. "We are pleased that we can continue to offer sustainable modes of travel to the campus community."

The bike share program has proven popular -- more than 39,500 registered users logged over than 330,000 miles on 500,000-plus rides. Both the city and the campus said to The Eagle in October that a number of issues arose, however, with the system operated by Ofo.

The city of College Station revoked Ofo's license to operate Oct. 12 after learning that the company's auto liability insurance coverage had lapsed, which prevented its employees from legally accessing the vans they use to collect and relocate bikes around town. Ofo restored its license, but A&M chose to change direction. VeoRide's blue bikes will replace the yellow ones belonging to Ofo.

Transportation Services is working through the transition details and expects uninterrupted service to the bike share program.

As information becomes available, a campaign to communicate the details about how to switch to the new vendor will be made available to the campus community. Regular updates will be posted to https://transport.tamu.edu/bikeshare

"Texas A&M University will have the largest on-campus micro-mobility share program in the U.S., and VeoRide is proud to provide the service and various fleet options to students and residents," said Candice Xie, CEO of VeoRide. "We will be a great partner for the community."

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