SUTD students share bikes to commute between Expo MRT and campus

Fed up with the one kilometre trek from Expo Mrt station to the campus, a group of final-year Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) students launched trials last month for a bicycle-sharing programme that will allow students to rent a bike at the MRT station and ride to campus.

"I've always cycled to and from the station, and it takes only five minutes," said information systems undergraduate Lee Jun Xiang, 23, who lives on campus.

He helms ZaiBike, a bike-sharing scheme two years in the making, which he runs with eight other final-year students at the university. The users scan a QR code on the bike with their smartphone, which gives them a security code to unlock the bike with. After they ride to campus, they can lock the bike at any of seven racks there. Users get the first hour of rental free, but they have to pay 50 cents for each half-hour after that.

The scheme comes as the Government is preparing to launch its own bike-sharing pilots in the Jurong Lake District and Marina Bay, expected by the end of the year. But ZaiBike differs from other bike-sharing models in that specialised docking stations - that lock and rent out the bikes - are not needed. "Pavement space is very limited here, so we wanted to adapt our bikes to existing racks instead," said Mr. Lee, adding that costs can also be kept low without heavy investment in infrastructure.

The group has received a $20,000 grant from the university's research and development centre, and is trying to raise money to buy 30 custom bicycles.