The ceremony was presided over by Phuket Governor Norraphat Plodthong in the presence of members of the Phuket City Development Co Ltd (PKCD) and partnering companies Obike and ofo Thailand.
Gov Norraphat said, “We are please to announce the launch of this bike sharing project in Phuket which we hope will support tourism in Phuket Old Town tourism and surrounding areas. Locals and tourists can now enjoy cycling around Phuket Town, and we hope this goes some way to decreasing traffic and helps the environment.
“This service supports the Phuket Smart City status and its first phase will see more than 1,000 smart-lock bikes in use. The month-long free trial will be started from the Oct 1”, he said.
However, it should be noted that people can start using the bikes as of now at a cost of B99 which will be refunded once an account has been closed.
As of Oct 1 people can use the bikes using the free trial offer.
Noppol Toochinda, General Manager of ‘ofo’ Thailand, added, “We are very glad to be party of this Phuket bike share project. We are offering a service that is now growing across the world.
“We have launched more than one million bikes over 170 countries around the world including China, America, England, Malaysia, Australia, Japan and Singapore, with these bikes being used more than 25 million times per day,” Mr Noppol said.
“The application needed to use these bikes can be installed using ‘ios’ and ‘android’ via a ‘QR code’. The bikes are available from bike stations at Limelight Avenue Phuket, Prince of Songkla University Phuket campus, Phuket Merlin Hotel, Pearl Hotel, Sengho Bookstore, Bang Niew Shrine, Phuket Rajabhat University, Saphan Hin Park and Phuket Old Town,” Mr Noppol.
Earlier yesterday, Mr Noppol announced the launch at a press event in Phuket Town.
At that event he explained that the special feature is a scanning QR code on the bike to unlock it, without having to enter a code like the former models. For appropriate parking, the designated park locations will be displayed on the application. (See story here.)