Connectivity can fail.
The bike still comes out.
Connected or reliable is a false choice
Connected parking projects elsewhere have failed in public, and it is tempting to treat the internet as the risk and retreat to offline-only or Bluetooth-only systems. That just trades one dependency for another. Now the rider’s phone, app, and Bluetooth all have to work at once.
You don’t have to give up a connected system to get one that always opens.
The industry norm is one point of failure
Most vendors run a single SIM and a single gateway. When that link drops, the station goes dark. No monitoring, no remote support, and often no way to get the bike out without a site visit.
At city-wide scale, sending a van to every dark station is not an option. That single dependency is exactly what has been burning these projects.
Up to three independent layers
Each layer works on its own. If one drops, the next is already there. Connectivity degrades, but the bike still comes out at every level.
Internet over industrial dual-SIM
Two carriers in one gateway. If one network drops, it fails over to the other automatically.
SMS recovery over 2G
With no data connection at all, the station can still be reached and opened by SMS.
On-device PIN recovery
Open the dock with a PIN right at the unit. No network, no phone, no app.
Each station stores its authorised cards locally, so riders can lock and unlock even while it is cut off from the cloud. Connectivity is for monitoring and support, not a gate the rider has to pass through to get their bike.
Recovery is automatic, not a manual fallback
The layers are not something the rider has to understand or operate. In the rare case a station loses connection, the rescue happens for them.
The support line resolves it before it rings
The rider calls Bikeep support. The line identifies them and connects straight to the Bikeep backend, which reads the station’s status and restarts it, sends an SMS to reopen the dock, or reads out the PIN over the phone. Most cases are handled before the call ever reaches an agent.
The app already carries the rescue code
When the app detects the rare case of no connection, it shows the unit’s PIN right on screen. The rider releases the bike on the spot, with no call to make and nothing to wait for.
Reliability is not the absence of a connection. It is what happens the moment one drops.
A true last resort, not a second way to fail
The deepest layer is a PIN at the unit. A code opens the dock with nothing online and nothing on the rider’s device, so even a dead phone or a failed app cannot keep a bike locked in.
It needs no network, no phone, and no app. That is a true last resort, not just a second way to fail.
| Single SIM + gateway | Bikeep | |
|---|---|---|
| Network redundancy | None | Dual-SIM failover |
| Works with no internet | No | Yes, SMS + local access |
| Works with no rider phone or app | N/A | Yes, PIN at unit (add-on) |
| Independent fallback layers | 1 | Up to 3 |
Layered reliability is not a spec-sheet promise. Bikeep built it while running fleets at this scale, where a van to every dark station is impossible and each unit has to recover on its own. It is what a city-wide program needs, it works now, and it grows with you.
Planning a city-wide program?
Tell us about your sites and we will map the right level of redundancy for them, from the dual-SIM base station to the fully offline PINpad layer.