Scooter rental is not a new thing; there are tons of companies who offer scooters for rent. Yet, Blinkee.city is something new: it offers the vehicles in community sharing system. While classic scooter rentals have an office where we can rent the scooter for hours or even for days, Blinkee.city has all the advantages of community bikes or shared cars. You may have heard about Mol Bubi, one community bicycle system of Budapest or Mol Limo, one of the community cars, and now here comes the „missing link”. But let’s see the details.

Blinkee.city, the first community scooter system of Budapest launched a few weeks ago with 50 fully electric vehicles. The keyless community scooter rental can be handled via a mobile app. After a short registration you can see and choose all the available scooters on a map. You can book the nearest for free and have 15 minutes to get there. You can unlock the scooter using the app, then open the trunk, take the helmet and a hygienic cap out. Now the scooter is active and ready to ride. Accelerate and drive wherever you want. Got where you wanted? Park the scooter, put the helmet into the compartment, and end using it in the app. That’s it!

Payment is minute-based, so you don’t have to pre-upload a specific limit. The basic prize is 49 HUF/ minute, but students have special discount: 41 HUF, which means 0.15 - 0.12 Eur / min. Parking is only 6 HUF per minute if you need to stop for some reason. Now, in the first period, scooters can be found in a smaller, inner part of the city (they have to be brought back here after your trip), but of course, you can use it anywhere in the administrative area of Budapest. It also means that you cannot visit the cities in the agglomeration, but this minute-based rental isn’t made for this type of long journeys anyway.

As for the technical parts: Blinkee.city is a moped. With their 3.1 KW engine power and 35 Ah power battery, they can go up to 60 kilometers with a single charge. Anyone older than 16 years of age can use them with at least a six-month old AM or higher license. Use of helmet is mandatory, but this is part of the service, the helmets are in the trunk. The scooters are completely electric, thus reduce the noise pollution, air pollution and traffic jams, and make city’s traffic more cost-effective.

There is a big difference between the bicycle sharing systems and Blinkee.city: the scooters can be left anywhere in the designated are, as there are no docking stations. Blinkee.city monitors the battery level and replaces them: they go to the spot where the user left the scooter. The replacement is a one-minute process and the freshly-charged vehicles are active again. Scooters are fully secured; all of it has the compulsory liability insurance.

Long story short: Blinkee.city is fully recommended. You won’t find any easier, cheaper, more effective or more environmentally conscious solution to get from A to B in Budapest