Dublin City Council has signalled its clearest intention yet to replace the DublinBikes scheme with a different system by the time the current schemes contract ends next year.A briefing note to councillors ahead of their mobility committee meeting next week outlines that the current DublinBikes contract ends in September 2027, and the council wants to initiate market sounding a preliminary engagement process with bicycle share operators in advance of a formal procurement process.DublinBikes launched in September 2009 with widely expressed expectations that the system would flop and the bikes would end up in the Liffey and the canals. The opposite happened it was widely sucessful and became a symbol of hope for the normalisation of cycling in Dublin.Although some of its high usage per bicycle was due to the lack of expansion. To much disappointment, the planned expansion stretching from near DCU never materialised. Disruptions have also come in the way of the city-licensed stationless bicycle share run by Bleeper and Moby, and Covid changing commuting patterns. The current system is run by the French advertising company JCDecuax, which owns the docking systems and bicycles. It currently has 1,600 bikes with 115 stations, mostly within the canal cordon. It costs 35 per year for annual users, with different fees for short-term passes, and 30-minute free trips for all users.The system is subsidised by a mix of on-street advertising space licensed to JCDecuax, direct council funding, and sponsorship of the bikes, currently held by insurance company RedClick.While nothing has been decided about how the new system will work, the briefing note to councillors outlines that the council is considering a system with one operator across the city, with a fleet of around 4,000 bikes comprising a mix of standard and electric-assisted bicycles. Jennifer McGrath, Dublin City Councils senior executive engineer with responsibility for micromobility, said: Dublin City Council (DCC) intends to provide a new city-wide bike share scheme across the city council area post September 2027, and so DCC intend to enter a procurement process to ensure that shared bike services will continue post 2027.DCC believe that in a new bike share scheme, the city council should own the bike stations and potentially the bikes themselves, with a model where there is an operational, maintenance and upgrade contractor appointed, she wrote in the briefing note to committee members. McGrath said; It is intended there would be one operator across the City and that there is a combination of classic (non-powered ) bikes and e-bikes with a fleet of around 4,000 bikes. It is not intended at this stage to operate an e-scooter. DCC will be involved in market sounding engagement with various bike share operators prior to engaging in the formal procurement process.She added that, to assist with this process, it is proposed to hold a workshop for councillors on bike share to gather the views of the elected members.