Overview
With over 500 cities in 49 countries worldwide, bikesharing has grown substantially over the last years. It is one of the quickest ways to realise sustainable transport in urban areas. Over the upcoming years these systems will contribute to a better efficiency of the transport and cycling infrastructure.
VeloCitta will bring together 10 European partners whose goal is to increase the number of people that use a (shared) bicycle. VeloCitta brings together 5 existing urban Bike Sharing Systems (BSSs) that currently do not meet up to the ambitions that were set. Possible causes for this is the lack of sufficient active users, the chosen techniques or the used business case. The main purpose here is to identify and solve the responsible market and organisational barriers. Within the VeloCitta project the 5 participating cities (Krakow, London, Szeged, Padua and Burgos) will initiate new marketing campaigns and develop a new approach to the organisational and financial aspect of the Bike Sharing Systems. The main outcome of the project is to launch an online Workspace of Bike Sharing containing documents, best practices, campaign suggestions, contact form and several e-courses.
Results
- Wider awareness and increased use of Bike Sharing Systems in the 5 partner sites. This means amongst others significant increases in the number of users, the number of stations and cycles and rental per users. Figures vary considerably owing to the size and level of maturity of the BSSs.
- Attitudinal shift amongst target groups towards a more positive view towards cycling in general and bike sharing in particular.
- Increased operational efficiency of the BSSs through enhanced knowledge about financial organisation of BSSs and higher political involvement.
- In order to reach the 2020 targets on energy savings we expect to realise a modal shift between 5–21 % depending on the size and scope of the different local sites. This translates to 100 million kilometres travelled per year by bikes operating as part of case study BSS and 1619 t CO2e/year reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the project.
- Set-up of a permanent online European Bike Sharing Workspace that will have relevant documentation, best practices, campaign suggestions, a contact forum and guidelines is another important feature of this project.