Photo: Neil Fraser

One of Belgium’s most famous exports is the family of blue cartoon characters known as the ‘Smurfs’.  They may soon be joined by something else that shares the same colour: the national bicycle sharing scheme – Blue-bike – thanks to a new European Project aimed at spreading best practice amongst rail operators.

Inspired by the similar OV-Fiets system in The Netherlands, Blue-bike was initiated by FietsenWerk and the holding company behind Belgian National Railways (NMBS-Holding) three years ago.  The aim was to help their customers move from A to B in the most convenient way possible.  You can now find the distinctive blue bicycles outside more than 40 train stations across the country, which can be rented to provide a quick, flexible and, let’s not forget, fun means of reaching your final destination after a trip by train. 

Bike-to-Train has never been easier (or cheaper)!

Photo: Neil Fraser

Rental charges are relatively low - membership costs €10 per year and day rental is €3 per 24 hours for a normal bike or €4 per 24 hours for an electric bike.  Rather than a profit making exercise, the goal has been to make the scheme cost neutral, which so far it has been.  The benefit for the Belgian National Railways is that the bikes play an important role in reinforcing the intermodal character of their stations and thereby demonstrate that there are alternatives to the private car in terms of providing door-to-door services.  ECF found out just how easy when we were able to take a study tour from the UK’s All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group from Brussels main station right to the doors of the European Parliament, bypassing all congestion and parking restrictions.

Blue-bike has proved to be extremely popular.  Over 5,000 people have signed up as members and they were used on 32,000 occasions during 2013, a figure the operators hope to double during 2014.  To build on this success, there are ambitious plans for creating new rental stations – ‘Bike Points’ – over the next few years.  Four new ones are expected to open this year in the region of Wallonia alone 

Bike + Bus

The success of the Blue-bikes at railway stations has lead the Flemish government to invest even more in intermodality. In march 2014, the Minister of Transport Crevits, announced the opening of 6 new Blue-bike hubs with 400 bicycles at important bus stops in the Flemish Region. Regional bus and tram operator De Lijn is enthusiast to participate in this initiative to facilitate the first and last mile of its users.   

A Behaviour Changer

Photo: Neil Fraser

Perhaps what are most impressive are the changes in behaviour that the Blue-bike has inspired.   According to a survey of users undertaken last year, 30% of them use the train more often than they did before and 40% use their car less often.  Interestingly, approximately half of the rentals are for leisure, whilst half are for business.  The operators are keen to encourage more businesses to sign up (e.g. Blue Bike is 100% tax deductible and vouchers can be purchased to send to visitors in advance) in a country with an ingrained culture of company cars.

It is no surprise then to hear that other rail operators are interested in the success of Blue-bike.  The aim of the three year, EU-funded BiTiBi project is to share the experiences of Blue-bike and OV-Fiets with rail operators from the UK, Italy and Spain.  The project partners met for the first time at the end of last month in Utrecht and ECF went along to share learning with other EU funded projects such as our own Bike2work commuter initiative.

The operators of Blue-bike are also keen to learn from other projects too, particularly with regards to the integrated ticketing that has now been introduced in the Netherlands.  A single chip card can be used for all public transport systems (train, bus, trams, etc.) as well as the OV-Fiets bikes. With increasingly sophisticated and innovative systems being developed it is clear that they can potentially have a huge influence on Europe’s future urban transport networks.

We will be providing updates on the BiTiBi project, so you can have access to examples of best practice to pass on to your national or regional rail operator if they do not currently provide such services.