Last September, the city began its 2-year dockless bikeshare pilot, which will run through October 2020. Calgary was the first Canadian municipality to launch a multi-operator permit system for dockless bikes. From October to May, users logged over 75,000 trips on 375 e-bikes. This is especially impressive over the cold winter months, but even the coldest day in Calgary (-26C/-15F) still saw bikeshare usage! The pilot was awarded as one of the year’s top 10 bike projects at the 2019 Canadian National Bike Summit.

“This achievement required a lot of research on best practices from outside of Canada on regulating dockless bike share companies, leaning on what had already been done by other NABSA member municipalities,” said City of Calgary Transportation Engineer Nathan Carswell. “We then had to adapt them for the Canadian context, which meant working closely with the interested companies to
navigate the Canadian legal system, privacy requirements, and of course, our Canadian winters.”

Calgary is not finished providing shared micromobility options for its residents and visitors. They are currently working toward a pilot for dockless scooters in close cooperation with the Province of Alberta.