ESTABLISHED 13 SEPTEMBER 2009
When I photographed this the overall sponsor was JustEat today [2023] it is a company known as Now.
The scheme was announced by Dubin City Council in 2006 when JCDecaux received 72 free advertising spaces around Dublin in a 15-year deal in return for the advertising company’s funding of the project. Critics argued that the deal was an expensive one when compared to Copenhagen where companies pay to have their logos attached to the bicycle. 450 bicycle stands were installed in groups of ten and twenty in forty locations around Dublin from June 2009. The scheme was opposed by An Taisce who said it was “misuse of legislation by a local authority to facilitate a private development”.
The Dublinbikes scheme was launched on 13 September 2009, with around 150 ordinary cyclists embarking on their first ride behind John Tierney, Dublin City Manager, and Andrew Montague, a councillor who was representing the Lord Mayor of Dublin on the journey.
It was announced on 18 June 2014 that Coca-Cola Zero would become a commercial partner with Dublinbikes for three years. Starting at the end of June 2014, the brand was renamed Coca-Cola Zero Dublinbikes and the Coca-Cola Zero brand was added to each individual bike in return for investment in the scheme.
On 20 July 2017, Just Eat took over as the commercial partner for the next three years. Just Eat invested €2.25 million in the scheme over the three-year period. This is a 15% increase on the Coca-Cola Zero investment in order to help the profitability and expansion of the service. The brand was therefore renamed Just Eat dublinbikes and all 1,500 bikes had the new branding applied to them by August 2017. As part of the announcement, it was confirmed that an additional 15 stations would open in the city (predominantly around Grangegorman) and 100 bikes would be added to the network.
On 9 December 2020, Dublin City Council and JCDecaux announced that Now TV would become the next sponsor of Dublinbikes, in a deal worth €2.25 million over three years. The Now TV partnership came with the release of a new app that will allow users to release a bike from their smartphone.
