Bhubaneswar: The public bicycle sharing system would be launched to promote the eco-friendly modes of transport in the city.

A cycle lane will be developed as part of a futuristic 120km road under the complete street plan. In the first phase, there will be a 40km stretch, and the two main focus areas will be Smart District and Info City areas, hereafter referred as the core area.

A meeting among officials of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority, Bhuban-eswar Smart City Limited and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation was held recently where a roadmap on how to go about the system and make it user-friendly was presented.

"Without a dedicated cycle track in the city, the cyclists always remain vulnerable to the speeding light and heavy vehicles. According to the provisions, the cycle track will have safety as a major concern for the cyclists," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

"What had started as an awareness during the city's weekend fest, Patha Utsav, in the recent past, now took a new dimension as the project was part of the Bhubaneswar Smart City proposal," he said.

"With this in mind, the city administration has put more stress on the use of cycles as the means of transport to remain smart. The smart city proposal has categorically stressed on development of a non-motorised, green and healthy city transport network," he said.

To provide better transit linkages with the existing city bus services, the parking spaces shall be placed near the bus stops.

In the first phase, the system will include Janpath, Cuttack-Puri Road, Jagamara-Sundarpada Road, Bidyut Marg, Airport-Nandankanan Road, Sachivalaya Marg and the national highway.

Around 3,500 bicycles shall be deployed in remotely controlled parking spaces located in every 400 to 500 metres distance within the core area. All the cycles shall have remote locking and unlocking facilities. In case of deficit of cycles in a particular zone, the two-wheelers would be transported to the deficit zone from the surplus area.

The cycles, equipped with the Global Positioning System, will be made available in the first phase before the Hockey World Cup scheduled in Bhubaneswar in November.