ŠKODA AUTO DigiLab and the city of Brno have agreed on a far-reaching partnership for projects to promote sustainable mobility. In a memorandum of understanding (MoU), they agreed to introduce the BeRider e-scooter sharing service – which is a success in Prague – in Brno too. What’s more, as a public-private partnership, the city of Brno and ŠKODA’s innovation centre are pushing ahead with other projects as well. The aim is to expand and simplify the range of sustainable urban mobility services and to incorporate them even better into everyday life.
In Brno today, Head of ŠKODA AUTO DigiLab, Jarmila Plachá, and Mayor of Brno, Markéta Vaňková, signed the memorandum regarding the promotion of sustainable mobility services in the city.
Head of ŠKODA AUTO DigiLab, Jarmila Plachá, emphasised, “Brno is a young, vibrant city that is very open to new trends. We are convinced that we will be able to draw on many synergies in the future and are delighted about this memorandum. BeRider can only grow in close collaboration with cities, and Brno is now one of the pioneers. Partnerships such as these are a crucial success factor in innovating and advancing new mobility solutions in practice.”
Mayor of Brno, Markéta Vaňková, explained, “More and more people are looking for an alternative to cars. In addition to bike sharing, e-scooters are another way of getting around the city quickly and easily. I really value the fact that electric scooters run without producing any noise or emissions. We are looking for ways to reduce the environmental impact, not only in our city.”
The launch of BeRider is only the first step of a long-term project: as well as developing new mobility solutions and services for Brno’s residents and visitors, the public-private partnership also aims to encourage sustainable individual mobility locally and to establish multi-modal inner-city transport systems. ŠKODA AUTO DigiLab is also helping Brno to implement its Smart City strategy, where electromobility plays a central role.
Brno, the capital and administrative centre of the South Moravian region, is the second-largest city in the Czech Republic with a population of around 380,000. Boasting several universities, technology companies, international start-ups as well as research and development facilities, it is young and modern – making it the perfect place to also offer e-scooter sharing. The service has already been successfully launched in Prague: it took more than 23,000 bookings during its three-month pilot phase alone.
To rent one of the electric scooters, all users have to do is install the BeRider app (available free of charge for iOS and Android) onto their smartphones and then sign up to the service. Once successfully registered, users can then find available e-scooters and reserve as well as lock or unlock them without keys – all via the app. The top case contains two helmets. When users have arrived at their destination, their session ends after a brief confirmation via the app. The standard price per minute is CZK 5.00 (approximately EUR 0.19); for minute packages, the cost is CZK 3.30 (EUR 0.12) per minute. A category B driving licence or a category A1 motorcycle licence is required to ride the electric scooters.
