Bike sharing in Italy
If I say Italy, you might think of its renowned gastronomy, the gondolas of Venice, the Colosseum in Rome, the gladiators of Pompeii or the picturesque landscapes of Sicily, Sardinia or Puglia. But what about bicycles?
In recent years, Italy has become one of the European countries where bike-sharing systems are flourishing.
Indeed, in 2024, Italy saw 3 of its cities enter the top 10 European cities with the most journeys made per day by shared bikes per 1,000 inhabitants. These three cities, located in northern Italy, are Bologna, Florence and Padua. To take just the first example, the city of Bologna, with its system of 3,000 electric bikes and 650 mechanical bikes, had achieved 567,356 journeys by the first quarter of 2024. An increase of 37% on the same period the previous year.
Committed to the mission of achieving climate neutrality by 2030, Bologna is also the first Italian regional capital to adopt the Città30 measure, in place since January 2024. In addition, the city has diversified its shared mobility offering with a free-floating car-sharing system (465 vehicles) and mopeds (100 electric scooters). No shared electric scooters to preserve the city's architecture, but 2020 km of cycle lanes to make cycling easier for residents.
This inspiring example from the capital of the Emilia-Romagna region has clear objectives:
Speed up the fight against pollution
Reduce traffic and accidents
Make the city safer and more accessible
Combating inequalities in mobility
But what about other cities?
Italy, a flourishing country in terms of micro mobility
To understand mobility in Italy, we must first understand its context. To do this, the Italian National Observatory of Shared Mobility, in collaboration with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Safety and the Foundation for Sustainable Development, draws up an annual report, and the trend that emerges is very encouraging. Indeed, shared micro mobility has been growing steadily in recent years, and in particular, the use of electric bicycles.
In 2023, the total turnover of shared mobility services (shared cars, scooters, bicycles and scooters combined) amounted to 179 million euros in Italy. In a few figures, the year 2023 represents more than 600,000 passengers transported, 50 million rentals and 200 million kilometers traveled. In Italy, among the shared mobility vehicles counted in this report, 44% were electric scooters, and 42% were self-service bicycles, for a total of 86% of vehicles with carbon neutral emissions.
The electrification of fleets plays a major role in the increase in the number of shared bicycle rentals. Between 2022 and 2023, an increase of +12% was recorded; with 11.5 million shared bicycle rentals from free floating systems, and 4 million shared bicycle rentals from physical station systems.
© Dott
In terms of fleet electrification, Milan leads with 8,379 e-bikes, Rome is in second place with 4,136 e-bikes, and Bologna third with 2,415 e-bikes. In the south, Naples and Palermo are the two major cities that are not immune to the trend. This enthusiasm for electric vehicles influences the type of systems installed, particularly in free-floating systems, which now represent 62% of bike share systems in Italy in 2024.
It is this same electrification of fleets that, in Italy, favors private system operators such as Dott, Lime or Bird over "public" systems funded by the community. Very often, free-floating shared bicycle systems are managed jointly with e-scooter share systems by a single operator, in order to facilitate the operation of these systems. The cities mentioned above are no exception.
The example of Milan
Milan has now established itself as the 4th model European city in terms of shared mobility. It is a city that concentrates both private bike share and e-scooter share systems, and a public VLS system: “BikeMi”. It is also the first Italian city to invest massively in shared mobility, thus becoming a reference for other European cities.
First of all, let’s trace the history of micromobility in Milan:
In 2008, the public “BikeMi” system operated by Clear Channel was inaugurated with 850 yellow mechanical bicycles and 66 fixed stations.
In 2009, “BikeMi” was a resounding success and recorded 9,500 annual subscribers, 628 weekly passes and 3,185 daily passes. The bike share system was increased to 1,190 mechanical bicycles and 85 fixed stations, and became operational 24 hours a day.
Since 2013, many private bike share and e-scooter share operators have arrived on the market to establish themselves in the Milanese market: Helbiz, Ridemovi, Tier, Dott, Ofo, Bird, etc.
In 2019, several private operators were forced to permanently close their system due to economic problems and repeated acts of vandalism. Meanwhile, “BikeMi” celebrates its 10th anniversary and incorporates 150 new electric models into its fleet, which now has 4,280 bicycles, including 1,150 electric ones.
2024, the year in which Milan is recognized as the 4th model European city in terms of shared mobility and renovates its fleet of “Bike Mi” vehicles.
But then, how can we explain this phenomenon?
As mentioned above, since 2019, many private bike-sharing systems have left Milan due to economic problems linked to the pandemic that affected many of them, too much competition in the same territory or due to repeated acts of vandalism. Thus, the number of shared bikes in Milan has dropped from 18,600 in 2019 to 14,000 in 2024. This phenomenon has also negatively impacted private car-sharing and moped-sharing operators, seeing their fleet decrease by a third. Only the number of shared e-scooters has remained stable so far: 6,000 in 2019 and 2024.
An additional cause is added to this: between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, shared micromobility was remodeled with the entry into force of new regulations on the parking of shared vehicles and their security (brakes, indicators, registration, wearing helmets, etc.). In Milan, the Palazzo Marino (the city hall) decided to keep only 3 e-scooter share operators with a maximum of 2,000 vehicles per operator.
The aim of this remodeling is to reduce the total number of shared vehicles to match market trends (free floating and electrification of fleets), avoid illegal parking and reduce the accident rate. Thus, the number of bike share accidents fell by -48% and those of e-scooter share by -11% between 2023 and 2024.
Interview with several Italian communities on the VLS
Over the last few months, Qucit has met with the communities of Parma, Bologna and Verona to collect their ideas and initiatives to encourage the use of bicycles.
For these three cities, the shared bike service is above all an “alternative mobility system, easily usable by citizens and tourists, to travel short distances with a non-polluting means of transport”, as Tommaso Ferrari, deputy for mobility for the city of Verona, points out. This is why it is crucial to develop it and make it accessible to different audiences.
It is in Parma, “one of the first cities to have set up a self-service bike system, in 2006, that we are seeing a growing popularity”, according to Chiara Spaggiari, Sustainable Mobility Officer for Infomobility S.p.A. (delegation of the City of Parma for the operation of the bike share system until 2024). “To date, the bike share system is used 50% by Parma residents and 50% by tourists” confirms her colleague, Giancarlo Carboni.
The city of Verona, for its part, has been installing its public system “Verona Bike” since March 2012. “In order to boost its use, the City has focused on reaching outlying areas, gradually increasing the number of bicycles available and diversifying its fleet,” continues Tommaso Ferrari. “The vehicles available to users vary from mechanical to electric, many of which are equipped with child seats,” he says.
In Bologna, it is the free transport and the infrastructure that make the difference. “Since 10 June 2024, users with a public transport subscription (Tper) can benefit from free use of the shared bike for the first 30 minutes of travel.” informs us Valentina Orioli, Deputy for Mobility for the city of Bologna. In addition to an increase in the “RideMovi” fleet to 3,000 bikes and 200 stations, the city offers its residents an excellent infrastructure.
According to Tommaso Bonino, planner and manager of urban mobility for the city of Bologna, “currently, the city has 2,020 km of completed cycle paths, including 30 km in green spaces and river areas. In addition, in order to make micromobility travel safer, the city is going against the country's pro-car policy by becoming the first regional capital to introduce the città 30 measure in the city center, since January 2024."
In parallel with these initiatives, in Italy, there are various financial aids for the purchase of a bicycle in order to encourage the population to cycle. For example, in Bologna, the city hall has set up a financial aid system of €500 for an electric bicycle, and €1,000 for a cargo bike. "In Parma, where there are one to two private bicycles per household" according to Chiara Spaggiari, the city has set up a "Cicletteria" (bicycle house) for bicycle storage and rental, with a bicycle repair shop and a system for free recharging of private electric scooters and bicycles. Furthermore, in 2024 Infomobility invested €417,000 in aid for the purchase of electric bicycles for more than 1,000 residents of Parma. This allowed the city to welcome more than 1,000 new electric bicycles on its cycle paths.
Italy is a country with a pro-car policy, which has been reversing its trend for several years in favor of cycling. Many initiatives have been put in place to encourage the population to use bicycles, thanks to the improvement of infrastructure, the facilitation of access to self-service bicycles by local authorities as well as the many cycling associations operating in the country, to name only FIAB (Italian Environment and Bicycle Federation). Today, Italy is one of the European countries that has become a model for its neighbors in terms of micromobility and intends to remain so.
To find out more about this wonderful country, and their innovations around cycling, I'll see you at VéloCity 2026, which will be held in Rimini!
Learn more about micromobility here.