TOP STORIES 🔥

🚲 Dublin Is Taking Back Its Bikes

DublinBikes launched in September 2009 with 450 bicycles and 40 stations, under a deal granting JCDecaux exclusive rights to 72 advertising panels across the city: outdoor advertising in exchange for urban cycling infrastructure, with no upfront public funding required. At launch, critics questioned whether the agreement represented value for money and whether the terms were sufficiently transparent. The scepticism was understandable. In France, Lyon had been the only city to secure especially favourable terms before JCDecaux renegotiated similar contracts elsewhere.

Despite those concerns, the scheme was an immediate success. It expanded to 1,600 bikes across 118 stations, attracted a succession of major commercial sponsors — Coca-Cola, Just Eat, Now TV, RedClick — and became one of the most recognisable features of Dublin’s transport network. In 2021, half the fleet was converted to hybrid e-bikes. At its peak, the scheme counted 42,000 annual subscribers.

But the numbers told a more complicated story. DublinBikes has never turned a profit, operating at a deficit throughout its 17-year existence. Subscriptions fell sharply during the pandemic and never fully recovered. The scheme stopped expanding in 2017, leaving large parts of the city — particularly working-class suburbs — without access. As independent councillor Mannix Flynn put it bluntly, cycling investment had failed to reach many communities: “It beggars belief that we still haven't expanded this scheme. You cannot go into a block of flats anywhere in Dublin and see cycling infrastructure.”

The arrival of dockless bikes

Into this increasingly static landscape came the dockless operators. Bleeper — Ireland’s first dockless bike-share scheme, launched in 2017 — built a fleet of around 800 bikes under a city licence capped at 1,000 vehicles. Moby followed with a mixed fleet of pedal bikes and e-bikes, later expanding to 1,500 vehicles after partnering with Free Now in 2024. Between them, Bleeper and Moby now cover areas of Dublin that DublinBikes never reached: suburban neighbourhoods, university districts and riverside routes.

The contrast with DublinBikes became increasingly stark. A tourist arriving in Dublin could unlock a Moby e-bike in a dozen neighbourhoods but still fail to find a DublinBikes station within walking distance of their hotel. The station-based system had hardened into exactly the kind of centrally concentrated, subscription-based service with limited geographic reach that dockless models were designed to disrupt.

Dublin takes back control

The JCDecaux contract expires in September 2027. Rather than extending the arrangement, renewing it, or leaving the market entirely to private operators, Dublin City Council has announced that under the new scheme it will own the stations and potentially the bike fleet itself, while operations and maintenance will be tendered separately.

The scale of the ambition is significant. The council intends to deploy around 4,000 bikes — a combination of conventional bicycles and e-bikes — across the entire city. That would more than double the current DublinBikes fleet while finally extending coverage to the working-class communities that councillors have argued were excluded from the scheme from the beginning.

The open questions

How will a 4,000-bike system be funded without the advertising revenues that made the JCDecaux model viable in the first place? Will the new system remain fully station-based, or incorporate virtual hubs to reduce civil engineering costs? What happens to Bleeper and Moby — will they continue operating alongside the new public scheme, or will the council seek some form of integration or consolidation?

The council has not yet answered those questions. What it has answered, however, is the political question: Dublin is not going to follow the path taken by cities such as Nantes or Stockholm, quietly allowing public bike-share contracts to expire and leaving the market to private operators. Instead, it is moving in the opposite direction — taking ownership, expanding coverage, and building infrastructure under long-term public control.

👋 And Now Neuron Waves Goodbye to the UK…

On 31 May 2026, Neuron's orange e-scooters will disappear from Newcastle's streets. Not because the scheme failed locally — it covered 1.6 million trips — but because Neuron has decided to wind down its entire UK operation. Newcastle was the last city where the operator still ran a service. It is now gone from the country entirely.

The Newcastle trial had been one of the longest-running in the UK. Launched in February 2021, it had been extended no fewer than four times, most recently to May 2026 after the council demanded Neuron demonstrate tighter operational controls following councillor concerns about pavement riding, inconsiderate parking, and underage use. The company's UK head Mehmet Can Isiklarli acknowledged it was a "difficult decision," but framed it plainly: it is part of a broader strategic choice to exit the UK market.

The timing is pointed: Neuron's exit comes just weeks after Voi's public warning that it too could abandon the UK unless permanent legislation appears at the next King's Speech. Both companies are saying the same thing in different ways: the UK's framework is not worth investing in. Neuron made that call quietly. Voi is still making noise. The underlying logic is identical.

As the King's Speech delivered in May 2026 contained no e-scooter legislation, what's left of the UK shared e-scooter market is increasingly concentrated in the hands of operators with the balance sheet to absorb continued uncertainty: Lime, Bolt, Voi in its remaining cities. Smaller or more focused operators such as Neuron have made rational calculations that the UK isn't worth the wait. If Voi follows, the sector doesn't thin out. It effectively ends outside London.

The data Neuron collected in Newcastle will, as the council noted, "provide the government with some useful information" for any future legalisation process. It is cold comfort for a city that now has no shared e-scooter service, and for an industry that has been asked to prove its value on a one-year temporary basis for half a decade.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

EasyBike
Launch in Elassona (GR) 🚲

Guppy
Launch in Asturias Region (ES) 🚗

Hoppy
Launch in …

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PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

Neuron
Exit from Newcastle (GB) 🛴

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TENDER WATCH 👀

🔴 Closed

Frankfurt (DE) | 🛴
◾️Bolt confirmed among the 3 selected operators
◾️Total fleet of 10,500 scooters
◾️New licences start on July 1st

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CITY UPDATES 🌐

Athens (GR) | A new regulatory framework has been adopted for scooters, including rules dedicated to shared usage.

Dublin (IE) | The City Council wants to replace DublinBikes with a 4,000-bicycle system that it owns.

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INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Belfast Bikes records its monthly ridership record since 2024.

Beryl hits a major milestone in Brighton and Hove (GB) with 1 million rides.

CoMoUK released its 2025 Car Club Report.

nextbike upgrades its MeinSiggi fleet in Bielefeld (DE) after contract renewal.

Voi offers free rides to riders using Klarna as mode of payment in Sweden (SE) and Germany (DE).

Zeus has swapped some of its Felkensee (DE) scooter fleet for Superpedestrian models.

nextbike partners with grocery brand EDEKA, and rebrands its fleet in Berlin (DE).