A study by the Israel Railways reveals that approximately 5500 passengers arrive at the train stations with their bikes every morning and less than 20 percent use the bicycle parking facilities.

The Ministry of Transport and Israel Railways will install robotic parking facilities for passengers to increase the number of persons parking their bicycles at the stations to reduce the crowding in trains.

During weekdays, 4,500 of the 5,500 passengers arriving at stations on bicycle take the bikes with them, leading to crowded conditions on trains. This emerges from a study carried out by Israel Railways ahead of the tender for robotic parking facilities published last week.

The study included mapping the areas of the stations and the municipal plans for paving bicycle paths, and even daily observations made during the past year at most of the train stations, on weekdays, between the hours of 6:00-12:00.

According to the information obtained in the study, close to 30% of all bicyclists taking trains use one of four of the most crowded Tel Aviv stations. Officials at the Savidor Merkaz station questioned 421 bicyclists and learned most preferred not to use the parking facility, but to take their bikes with them.

When speaking with 409 riders at the Shalom station in Tel Aviv, which is a bit less crowded, only 53 use the bike parking facility.

At the Tel Aviv University station and HaHaganah station, 888 bicyclists were interviewed at the two stops and only 97 take advantage of the bicycle parking available.

The Herzliya station is also ranked among the busier stations and of the 478 bikers there, only 76 use the parking facility. At the Bnei Brak station, 77 passengers arrived on bicycle. Most appear to work in Ramat HaChaiyal.

Petach Tikvah Kiryat Aryeh is also a busy station, and here, only 90 of 203 bicyclists use the parking. This appears to be the norm, as at the Netanya station, only 54 of 200 riders use the parking facility and in Ashdod, only 32 of 157 riders use the facilty.

Israel Railways has installed dozens of Dutch parking facilities in most stations in Israel. These facilities enable easy and easy locking dozens of bikes, free of charge. In addition, Israel Railways recently launched a kol korei, which will allow cooperative bicycle rental companies to place them near selected stations, and a special price benefit for train passengers.

Recently, the Ministry of Transport and the Israel Railways published a tender for the installation of advanced robotic parking facilities as part of a pilot to be implemented in the coming months. These parking lots enable optimal utilization of the land area, are safe from theft and damage, and allow rapid and manpower-free use through a dedicated application. These parking lots will allow more than 200 bicycles to be accommodated in each facility, and the service will be free for train passengers during the first 12 hours of use, after which the cost will be limited to a few shekels. Minister of Transport and Information Yisrael Katz noted that “the project is designed to make the train accessible to cyclists, and with the success of the pilot, it will be expanded to additional train stations throughout the country.

“We welcome the growth in the number of passengers on the train, including cyclists, and are working to make bicycle stations more accessible, as well as for the installation of complementary services such as air pumps,” says Shachar Schwartz, “The robotic facilities will be placed in the first stage according to the availability of the land and the distribution of cyclists at the stations, and in the future we will expand to other stations. We call on cyclists to use the facilities and services installed at the stations and ride carefully,” he added.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)