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What Bicing lights mean and why some bikes cannot be used
A Bicing station may have several bicycles docked and show many fewer as available in the Smou app. It is not always an error: the dock lights indicate whether a bicycle can be taken, is reserved, is charging or whether the system is processing an operation.
The first indicator is also the simplest. According to Bicing’s official information, an available bike may show an orange LED or have no light on at all. These are the bikes a user can normally choose when arriving at the station, as long as they match the type—mechanical or electric—selected in Smou.
The yellow light requires more attention because it doesn’t have a single meaning. When all free bikes at a station are gone and only those reserved through the booking service remain, the yellow LED means those bikes are locked for anyone who hasn’t made a reservation. Reservations are made via Smou, last five minutes, and let you pick a bike of the selected type from those available.
But yellow also appears during the normal process of picking up or returning a bike. When scanning the QR, using NFC, or the card, the user should wait for the yellow light to turn green before taking the bike. When returning a bike, something similar happens: yellow means the dock is detecting the bike, and green confirms it’s been properly secured.
Red is mainly used to identify a dock that isn’t available. Bicing specifically states that when returning a bike, you should choose a spot without a red light. Also, electric bikes that are charging at a station show a flashing red LED and can’t be taken during this process.
It can also happen that there are bikes physically present, but Smou doesn’t allow you to take any. Bicing itself explains that in these cases, they may be broken bikes left at the station waiting for the maintenance team to remove or repair them. That’s why simply counting bikes by sight doesn’t always match the availability shown on your phone.
This difference is becoming more significant as the service grows. Bicing closed 2025 with 19.5 million uses and over 166,000 subscribers. It currently has 8,000 bikes—5,000 electric and 3,000 mechanical—and 557 stations spread across the ten districts. The latest published figures put the number of subscribers at just over 170,000.
Smou updates the available bikes and docks roughly every 30 seconds. The app also lets you check electric and mechanical bikes separately and offers a prediction of the likelihood of finding a bike or free space at a station in 15 or 30 minutes.
There’s another useful detail after each trip: it’s not enough to see the bike physically placed at the station. Bicing recommends checking in Smou that the trip has ended or waiting for the notification confirming the docking. If the app still shows the trip as active after you’ve left the bike, the user should contact customer service to resolve the issue.