PubliBike App

I love the app and the concept for the bikes. However, I don’t like that you have to return at a specific bike stand in order to not be charged. Byrd, and lime in the states you can drop the scooter or bike off anywhere which is very convenient for the user.

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I had an open ride of 17 hours when I took the bike only for 30 minutes so I called the “hotline” to ask for an explanation. First in the morning, someone asked me and said without checking or anything that this was normal and to call again at opening hours (when it says they functioned at the time I called). Then I called again and a woman that was almost mad of speaking English, couldn’t answer or hear anything and I asked if I could talk to an other person and she said to call again and hang up! What a terrible customer service !

Very happy to see expansion of service outside Altstadt. Very convenient and generally well run. Should have reward incentive for reporting abandoned/stolen bikes like I did today! :)

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I registered with the app and waited 5 minutes for my account to be activated according to the instructions. However, every time I tried to unlock a bike, I would get a picture of an unhappy man wearing a bike helmet, which according to the FAQ on the website means “user not recognized”. I tried renting bikes at 3 different stations with the same results.

Update: changed from 1 star review to 5 star because of the good customer support. Still, take the time to educate yourself on how to use the service. I used the app to unlock a bike, but it didn’t unlock so I moved to the next bike. That one unlocked... then I rode it to get breakfast and back. Apparently, the first bike that never unlocked, unlocked after I left or something because now the bike shows that I’ve had it rented for 48 hours. I emailed them yesterday (they sent me an email asking me to return the bike after 20 hours) trying to figure out what to do but didn’t get a response within a few hours so I called instead. After finding someone who spoke English, she informed me that I would not be charged (this is when the meter showed 24 hours) and that someone from their bike recovery team would call me shortly. Well, no one called and now I’m getting worried because: 48 hours X 60 minutes X 0.10/minute is 288 CHF. I really hope they don’t end up changing me that because of buggy software. Looking at the app, it wasn’t very clear to me that I had still had a bike rented until after I got the email from them. It’s not like lime or bird scooters where you have to use the app to lock the bike when you’re done with it. Instead, you have to use a manual mechanism on the bike itself (which I did for the bike I rode). There’s no reason to look at the app once you’ve done this as the screen on the bike shows a check box. Anyway, it would have been nice to get a notification on my phone informing me that another bike was rented so that I could run down and check to see if there was one there that was unlocked. I’ll update this review once they contact me (I hope it’s soon as I’m leaving the country tomorrow). Renter beware! You can rent up to 5 bikes on the same phone. Besides the crazy experience of inadvertently unlocking another bike, I really did love the ebikes themselves. I zipped to old town really fast, and while others complained that you can’t park these bikes just anywhere (there are designated places), I think that’s actually a good thing (keeps the streets neat and tidy).