Rastel.io - Safe parking spaces for bicycles
Have you ever had your bike stolen? That was the question we asked our colleagues in the Orange team and were surprised that around 30% of us came through this unpleasant experience. Fortunately, the world does not stand still, and you can be more confident about the safety of your two-wheeled friend with the Rastel.io solution! By development of a smart network of secure parking areas, Rastel.io seeks to address the issue of bicycle parking spots.
We met the founders of Rastel.io, Tudor Beleuță and Horea Toniuc, to ask about their company, vision, and specifics of the solution.
How Rastel.io started?
Rastel.io is a young team of four passionate bicycle lovers, Tudor Beleuță, Horea Toniuc, Sebastian Mihalache, Robert Kovacs, who won first prize at the Urban Innovation Hackathon two years ago with the idea of a safe bike parking network. After the victory, they continued to work together under the Rastel.io name, turning their idea into reality. In 2022, they met Orange Fab: Rastel.io was interested in expertise, and Orange Fab was impressed by the spectacular progress that the team made during a very limited period—that is how our partnership started.
What is the idea?
The main goal of the company is to provide bicycle owners with easily accessible, reliable parking shelters, wherever they go within the city. With two units already implemented in Cluj, Rastel.io is planning to cover cities one by one with 20–30 units of secure parking bicycle spots, providing cyclists with increased property security and mobility. The developed application allows users to find the nearest available spot, book it, and even earn rewards for sustainable mobility promotion.
What does the end user receive, and for what price?
There are two types of Rastel.io shelters: public and private. To access the public, the user needs to provide just a name, email, and phone number. For the private one that ensures a higher security level, the user also needs to connect a bank card or ID, so it will be possible to identify who and when accessed this type of shelter. Regarding the price, Rastel.io is going to offer a flexible tariff system that depends on your needs, starting from the free plan, when you need to park your bike just for a while, up to more extensive plans, which include continuous storage. So if you are going by bike just to buy groceries and you are not an avid shopaholic, you can basically use the service for free. Convenient, isn’t it?
Who are the target customers?
At first sight, Rastel.io targets just cyclists who want more secure storage. And, indeed, it is. However, if you are responsible for the well-being of office buildings, retail stores, malls, and so on, and you would like to bring a little calm and convenience to employees or customers who come on bicycles, we want to draw your attention to Rastel.io!
What are the future plans? Today, the Rastel.io team is planning to launch the first network in Oradea and is actively working in several directions to establish their solution on the market! The app is already available on mobile devices at https://app.rastel.io/ and they are currently performing the transition of the application to be available on Google Play and the Apple Store, communicating with the municipalities to convert public unused spaces into bicycle shelters, and thinking with Orange Fab on how to improve the access control system. And, of course, there is never enough security! So, Orange Fab is looking forward to working together and preparing bikes.
Find out more about Rastel.io from the ZF Tech Day show (a discussion in Romanian):
