ZYP

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Zyp bicycle

ZYP was a bike share program that operated in Birmingham from October 2015 to December 2019. The program was created REV Birmingham in partnership with the City of Birmingham, the Birmingham Regional Planning Commission and the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham. Program sponsors included Regions Bank, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama and the Alabama Power Foundation. REV's Lindsey West was the program manager. The name and logo were developed by Big Communications.

Zyp was launched in October 2015 with the first of an anticipated 400 bright-green bicycles. which were distributed to 25 stations. 100 of the bicycles were enhanced with electrically-assisted pedaling. Birmingham's was the first bike share program in the United States to offer electrically-assisted bicycles. The bicycles' charging kiosks were designed by Michael Dallaire and provided, along with GPS-enabled management software, by Bewegen of Quebec, Ontario. The bicycles themselves were manufactured by Procycle.

During its first year, the program expanded from 25 to 40 stations. As of April 4, 2016 the system had 5,812 members and had provided 20,768 trips for a total distance of 27,379 miles. At that time there were 359 bikes in service and 31 kiosks in operation, most of which were equipped to accept payment for memberships.

By the end of its first year the ZYP program had enrolled 826 annual or quarterly members and sold 11,687 daily or weekly passes. Riders had logged a total of more than 81,000 miles ridden in 63,051 individual rides. In October 2019 the program reported 472 "active members" and 5,155 "occasional members" with 32,464 miles traveled for the year and 249,540 cumulative miles traveled using the ZYP bikes. In December 2019 ZYP reported having served more than 43,000 users who logged 218,000 rides, for more than 252,000 miles traveled. At the program's end, approximately 275 bicycles remained in service.

Funding for the ZYP program expired at the end of 2019. The Birmingham City Council's Transportation Committee negotiated with another micro-transit vendor to furnish electric bicycles, scooters, and/or mopeds for public use beginning in March 2020.

A $1.35 million allocation for a wayfinding program to support the ZYP system was never spent.

Stations

ZYP Station No. 40 in September 2019

References

  • Davis, Bryan (July 20, 2015) "'Zyp' to be official brand of REV's BikeShare program." Birmingham Business Journal
  • Stein, Kelsey (April 1, 2016) "3 new bikeshare locations make it even easier to Zyp around Birmingham." The Birmingham News
  • Edgemon, Erin (October 10, 2016) "81,000 miles ridden during Zyp bikeshare's first year in Birmingham." The Birmingham News
  • "Zyp bikes leaving Birmingham." (September 24, 2019) WBRC.com
  • Beahm, Anna (October 3, 2019) "Zyp bikes to be replaced with electric scooters, pedal-assist bikes." The Birmingham News
  • Thornton, William (December 23, 2019) "Last day for Zyp bikeshare in Birmingham is Dec. 31." The Birmingham News

External links