36 short-term bicycle lockers are now being piloted at four locations across Dublin City Centre, with the lockers currently being offered free for the first two hours.The trial aims to test the concept of providing on- and off-street lockers which are operated via smartphone apps ahead of a possible wider rollout.The lockers are intended for short visits such as going shopping, going out for dinner or meeting friends. After the free two hours, they are charged at 2 per hour with a max daily fee of 12.Dublin City Council is running the trial with funding from the National Transport Authority and support from Bleeper, a company which is best known for its bicycle-share offering, and three types of lockers from different manufacturers. There are now 6 lockers available for use onCapel Street, another 6 onGrafton St at the College Green end, 12 in the Jervis Street Car Park opposite side of the street to the shopping centre, and 12 in the above-ground Drury Street Car Park.The Capel Street and Grafton St lockers use the Bikely app, the Jervis units use the Cycle Parking Irelandapp, and the Drury Street ones use the Bikeep app. While the first two hours are free, contact details and a payment method are needed to open the lockers.IMAGE: Map of current locations.Asked why there is a need for a trial, Alec Dundon, a senior executive engineer at the councils City Centre Projects office, said: The first thing is we want to get an idea of the demand thats out there for this type of service, and we felt that by locating a few of them around the city, well get some idea of that. We also werent sure what the best model out there was and the best app out there to suit the Dublin market. He said there are three different types of lockers and three different apps, and they are looking to learn from visitors to the city using the different lockers and systems to see which is the best option for city centre visitors.I would imagine in a years time well certainly have the information that were looking for. Wed have a good understanding of the demands that are out there and a good idea of which locker and app works the best, Dundon said. And from there we can decide where were going to go next. Its possible that the demand is not out there.Asked if they were looking at other locations, he said that they were looking at expanding locations as part of the trial, but nothing is confirmed yet. He said space is at a premium in the city centre, so they are looking at locations like car parks where there is accesssuitable for cycling. A number of car parks have limited or no ground floor area.For any possible extra on-street locations, Dundon also said that they would have to take care of the location. The on-street units have green roofs, but the units are already fairly minimised in size while still allowing bicycles to fit.Standing beside the lockers in Jervis Street Car Park, Hugh Cooney, CEO of Bleeper, said: These particular lockers are made by Larkin, which is a Galway-based company, and the smart locks and the app that goes with the lockers are made by Don Cicleto, a Spanish company.And these ones, on Jervis Street, are all for standard-size bikes, so each module can fit two bikes [with a triangular shape and doors on each end]. The option for longer bikes looks the same, but itll be just one door access, he said.IMAGE: A DublinBike being tested by IrishCycle.com in one of the units at Jervis Street.Regarding the units at Drury Street Car Park, Cooney said: One of the reasons we particularly went with UpandBike is theyre double-stacked. So theyre space efficient there, but theres a debate out there as to whether people are really going to use the second level of a double-stacked.The units by UpandBike, another Spanish company, are run with software by a company called Bikeep, founded in Estonia. The two-tier lockers use a similar pull-out rack system to two-tier racks commonly used in other countries in locations such as city centres and train stations, but they have yet to be widely used in public locations in Ireland to date. Here, theyve mainly been used in relatively new apartment developments.In countries where they are new, there is often scepticism that they will not be used or that they are not accessible to most people, but the argument for the concept is that they leave or free up space for people to use the lower racks. In the case of lockers, the space is there anyway.The location at Drury Street will give us a good chance over the course of the pilot to see whether the second layer gets used, he said.IMAGE: The lockers in Drury Street.The first two hours have been free for a while now, but while ironing out the kinks, they havent promoted the lockers much until today.Cooney says the Capel Street lockers, which have been in place the longest, are the most popular so far. The second most popular is JarvisStreet, followed by Grafton Street and then Drury Street they are at the lower level of the bicycle parking, so are less visible, but signage is to be added. The units on Capel Street and Grafton Street are made by a Norwegiancompany called Bikely, including hardware and software. Bikely also operates lockers at Blancherstown Shopping Centre, where they are free for the first hour and 1 per four hours after that, and at Swords Pavilions Shopping Centre, where they are 1 per hour. Feedback on the pilot programme can be given at bleeper.ie/pages/dcc-lockers-pilot.