For more or less 10 years, bike sharing systems have been facilitating first- and last-mile connections in our cities; and this session at Velo-city proved once again the beneficial impact they have on mobility and local economies.

D V Manohar, Chairman of the Hyderabad Bicycling Club and Vice President of the World Cycling Alliance, moderated four among the world's top experts on shared bicycle mobility discussing the economic challenges and benefits of bike sharing systems in extra-European contexts.

Carol Rivas, Relationship Manager at Rio's operator Tembici started with a presentation on the Bike Rio system, featuring PEBSS member PBSC technology, operated by Tembici and fully sponsored by Itau bank.

Kristian Brink from nextbike followed, another member of PEBSS: "All the so-called dockless systems are really a different thing from bike sharing: they are systems to collect and commercialise data through mobility. What are the impacts on local economy and the social context in our cities? How will bike shares look in 5 years? After the disruption happened in 2016-17 these questions are still open".

"Bike sharing cannot only be considered in purely economic terms: local authorities invest in these systems because they give a great return on investment when it comes to social, environmental, infrastructural and personal improvements": this was the main message from Mario Delgado, BKT bici publica, the great system working very well now in Guadalajara, Mexico.

"Thanks to the partnership with Uber, we are now reaching new users that were not cyclists; and thanks to e-bikes we allow them to expand the range people who can ride: cities are now entirely rideable by anyone" concluded Colin Hughes from JUMP (another member of PEBSS), recently acquired by Uber.

The floor was then opened to the audience and a busy discussion on the future of bike sharing and the different business models existing started and spilled into the lunch break.