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Vélib’: what’s the outcome after the summer chaos?

undefined undefined 4 septembre 2025 undefined 17h00

The Editor

© Hugo Dominguez / Le Bonbon

For the past few months, as bicycles keep taking over the streets of Paris, the bike-sharing company Vélib’ has found itself at the center of a scandal. What's the buzz? They're facing a growing number of defective bikes, coupled with a drastic increase in prices. So, as we head back to school, what should we expect?

Last spring, the story of Vélib’ took a historic turn, reaching a record number of subscriptions, with over 16% growth in just one year, and 500,000 subscriptions. However, it also faced increasing fraud and theft, leading to the disappearance of 640 bikes per day, compared to a normal rate of 230. A catastrophic situation that did not bode well for the fall. But where do we really stand today?


An absolutely disastrous summer for users

Indeed, it was not a great time to get around Paris this summer. On one hand, the metro was dealing with its huge summer construction project, affecting no less than 10 lines (not to mention the RER lines, which were completely impacted). On the other, there were the missing and dysfunctional Vélibs, with the announced fleet of 20,000 bicycles.counted 3,000 absentees. Worse still, at the end of July, the bike-sharing company dug the knife in a bit deeper, announcing a price increase and, even worse, the total end of free rides on electric Vélib’s, with or without a subscription. A situation that, as we can understand, did not fail to spark justified anger among the very many users. Fortunately, during a press conference held a few days ago, Sylvain Raifaud, president of Agemob (formerly SAVM), the agency in charge of vehicle management, announced some good news: the situation should pretty much return to normal.


A Bit of a Mixed Start

« The dip in bike availability observed at the end of June is completely resolved, it’s been two weeks since we’ve returned to 20,000 bikes », he declared on August 26th, two months after noticing the bike shortage, and especially after the summer, which is the best time weather-wise to ride a bike. A full return of all vehicles was made possible thanks to collaboration with the municipal police and safety services to minimize vandalism. Similarly, a large number of individual bike stations are being replaced to reduce these issues as much as possible. Unfortunately, many of these fraud cases are due to a fault in the subscription system.Indeed, the new rates will definitely be maintained for the moment. This change isn't exactly bringing joy to the Parisians, and who knows, it might slightly dampen the enthusiasm for this mode of transportation.