YouBike, Taipei’s public bicycle rental service, is to offer personal injury insurance with expenses to be absorbed by the system’s future operator, the Taipei Department of Transportation said on Thursday.
The YouBike contract expires at the end of this year and the city government plans to put a new contract out for bids, department Director-General Chen Hsueh-tai (陳學台) said at a meeting of the Taipei City Council.
Operations for next year would be similar to the current model, but the new contract would include personal injury insurance to be purchased by the operator for users, Chen said.
With YouBike use increasing, third-party liability insurance is to be added to the public liability insurance and product liability insurance, the department said.
The current operator, Giant Manufacturing, would be asked to provide third-party liability insurance from next month, department official Wang Yin-chu (王湮筑) said.
The new contract would also state that the operator must purchase personal injury insurance and third-party liability insurance, with the cost to be covered by the operator, Wang said.
Being insured, a YouBike user could file a claim after an accident, whether it was caused by the cyclist or someone else, he said.
The insurance process would require the collection of personal information and the operator would need to arrive at an agreement with the insurance company about procedures, Wang said, adding that the procedures would need to include an option for users unwilling to give their full name, national identification card number, birthday, telephone number and address.
It has not yet been decided whether the data collected would be managed by the city government or the operator, Wang added.
Taipei has 13,072 YouBikes and 400 YouBike stations, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Tai Hsi-chin (戴錫欽) said at the meeting.
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