VELO-CITY GLOBAL TAIPEI 2016 - DAY 03

29th of February

 

Bikenomics 101: Everything You Need to Know about It Was Discussed Today

Bikenomics - The Impact of Cycling

Monday’s first plenary provided the audience with insights on the economic benefits of cycling from an urban planning, industry and government viewpoint.

In his presentation, Uban Mobility expert Mark Major called for a new, positive discourse on urban mobility:

Instead of focusing on reducing car-use, advocates, planners and policy-makers should focus on maximising urban access, since cities are 'machines for accessibility'

Cycling plays a crucial role in this process, since it is the most cost-efficient way to increase accessibility.

Invited to the global stage of Velo-city by ECF, the business world’s point of view was presented by Armin Landgraf, Director of PON Bicycle Group. PON, a company originally active in car parts and machinery production, has been investing in the bike sector for five years because the group saw huge business opportunities in this market. Landgraf announced that Pon would unify its cycling brands and activities under the “PON.bike” umbrella – they are so proud of their cycling activities that they want to put their name on it.

The final presentation by Deputy Minister Shih-Chao Cho from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, featured the success story of the Taiwanese bike industry, which went from being efficiency-driven to being innovation-driven, also with the help of the Taiwanese government, which in its development strategy sees cycling as an eco-system comprising industry, society and daily life and brings together government, industry and research in a public-private partnership.

 

The Future of (smart) Cities explored by the Best Experts in the World

Designing the City for All

Fittingly, the focus was on the future at the closing plenary of Velo-city 2016. After a conference showcasing the evolution of cycling, the key message was clear: bicycles in every shape and form can play a massive part of our present, and our future, and we need to ensure that we are best placed to promote this.

Future trends, such as cycle highways that would help tackle connectivity issues between cities, or from suburbs to cities, need to be managed to ensure the maximum comfort and experience for users. As cycling modal share improves, the quality of life discussion and competition between cities and cycle will become more important argued Francine Houben, professor of aesthetics in mobility.  

Riccardo Marini, of Gehl Architects touched upon this, arguing that whilst people want to live in economically powerful cities, if this is causing people to become sick, there is something wrong. At the moment, our cities are designed for efficiency, not for people and health. Car addiction is causing health damages (air pollution, obesity and happiness), and the current road system is a major cause of this. He mentioned an experiment in New York, with Times Square, where they have transformed the space to make it more pedestrian friendly, leading to an improvement in the economy.

Cities that want more cycling create more cycle lanes, it is that simple.

The parts of cities that people remember are not the roads or car parks! He believed that engaging citizens to design nicer future cities will help create solutions.

Or, as Julia Nebrija, Urban Specialist-Consultant of World Bank pointed out, they will create their own solutions. She used Manila, a megacity of 24m people, as an example. There are 25,000 new cars on the road each month, and no clear transport strategy or cycling infrastructure. However, given its benefits, citizens are taking it upon themselves to promote cycling in the city, with cycling cultural events, mass rides and policy workshops with the government, all attempting to take back the city’s streets from cars and create a better city for all living there.

Anne Chung, the Taipei Commissioner for Transport showed how it was possible for cities to change, if they have the desire.

Taipei is being redesigned to reach the goal of 70% green transport by 2020 and 12% cycling – part of the reason for change were calls from citizens to adapt their cycling strategy, showing that advocacy can have large effects!

The plenary finished with positive messages from all speakers, as they believed that moving forwards, all the hard work would pay off and, given enough support from one another and younger generations, the creative solutions that are found will be implemented and make cities better places for all. 

 

The Cycling Industry Must be Ready to Support the Cycling Advocacy

Keep turning: the role of the cycling industry

The special status as the world’s bicycle manufacturing hub meant that Velo-city Taipei had a special relationship with the leaders of the cycling industry. “Keep turning” was the special session requested by Tony Lo, CEO of Giant to bring his industry colleagues to Velo-city and to get their vision of cycling’s future.

Joining Tony in the packed plenary were John Burke, President of Trek and Robbert de Kock, Secretary General of the World Federation of Sporting Goods and together they brought the worlds of cycling policy and business together.

Tony Lo showed how Giant’s business planning and market knowledge allowed them to create a strategy for Taiwan that has been supported by a wide range of Taiwanese institutions from governments to research. His concluding vision showed his ambition for this approach to go global, he sees that if advocacy and vision succeed there are 4.3 billion new customers for Giant around the world.

John Burke also took up the case for industry to help create a cycle friendly world. He showed what had been done so far by highlighting success stories in the USA and Europe, including the work of ECF’s industry backed Leadership Programme. But then he set a challenge for all cycling industry CEOs by introducing a 4 point scorecard for engagement with a cycle friendly world, from supporting advocates to making an impact around their factories and offices.

And then he too turned that figure into a business case too, showing the millions of extra bikes that could be sold if the developed world reached Danish levels of cycling and said Trek and other companies had to do more.

Robbert de Kock showed the scale and reach of the bicycle industry in designing attractive products of the future, not being limited by regulation of external bodies, positioning itself alongside the sporting goods industry. Also the industry can play an influential role at bodies such as the United Nations and World Health Organisation.

Together they provided some inspirational quotes and statistics that not only set the room talking but provided some great sound bites for Twitter and other social media. Robbert highlighted that

The car industry has to spend a lot on lobbying because it has a problem, cycling can advocate because it is a solution

Tony agreed with him saying “Yes, we are lucky, cycling is a great product, so people care about it. We are urban transportation but we are also part of life.”

When it comes to advocacy John said “If you are not talking about this then of course you don’t have a voice” and in support of advocates he quoted the American anthropologist Margaret Mead in an inspirational line that summed up his commitment to advocacy and change:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has

 

 

UITP Offered Smart Design Tips for Intermodality from Germany and Korea

Smart Design to Safely Combine Cycling and Public Transport

If one sure thing has emerged from what we have seen in Taipei until now, is that good quality infrastructures are key to the success of the shift to cycling cities. Today, another session stressed this out, also confirming that intermodality is an essential feature of tomorrow’s smart cities.

Bike mode share in Korea doubled from 2000 to 3% in 2015. Number of bicycles is on the rise as well: there are now 10 million, but they were only 6 million in 2010. But this didn’t happen by chance. Hee Cheol Shin, director at the Department of Transport Safety and Road Research in the Korea Transport Institute (KOTI), declared that “The government is investing a lot in cycling. Korea has a National cycling plan since many years: the Bicycle Master Plan focuses on infrastructure, campaigns and education.”

And Korea has also fully understood the position intermodality has in the promotion of cycling: bikes can already be taken on trains, subways and buses all over the country. The government made a total economic benefit analysis, and eventually decided to invest in the Public Bike Sharing (PBS) schemes because the social benefits are greater than costs.

The design of streets appears to be crucial as well: to minimize conflict between cars, pedestrians and bikes, special design of bike paths must be thought beforehand, in combination with footpath and bus stops.

On his behalf, Sebastian Schlebusch, Director of the International Business Development section of Nextbike from Germany, started with a pragmatic approach: limited space in urban environment calls for smart design. The bike share business model is shifting from advertising companies towards public transport operators. Sebstian revealed that 

This is very interesting both for cities, since it provides quick planning and implementation; and for Public Transport (PT) operators, through the increased catchment area of PT users. 90% of our customers travel multimodal

Four are, overall, the main areas of intervention needed for a successful bicycle-public transport integration, concluded Sebastian: “System integration: website, app, ticketing machines, invoicing; Tariff integration; Infrastructure integration: hubs at PT stations, satellite stations in cycle distance; and finally Marketing integration: shared communication campaign and signposting.”

The session was brilliantly concluded by the intervention from the public of Anvita Arora, Indian transport planner: “It is a win-win situation for PT providers to add bike share to their service: if bike share can take over part of the trips, it is beneficial for the Public Transport operator in time and money, and it enhances the experience of travellers.”

 

 

A new Industrial Revolution is here: eBikes are all over the Cycling World

eBikes: a New Industrial Revolution for Cycling

The growth of eBikes has surged over the last few years, and they were the topic of discussion here in Taipei, as at session discussing the new industrial revolution for cycling. 3 very different speakers told us how they are using eBikes.

First up was Chen Xueue from Nanjing University, who has been surveying eBike users in Huzhou in China. He presented a variety of data, showing how the use of eBikes has been growing very quickly, from 7,7% to 32% modal share of all 2 wheelers. Not only is the use of eBikes increasing, but the duration and distance of journeys has increased, perhaps suggesting that improvement in bike and battery technology is allowing users to travel further, and faster.

Unfortunately however, Xueue acknowledged that a major problem exists with the lack of regulation and oversight of eBikes. Currently, many vehicles are often tampered with to increase the speed, against the eBike standard. He argued that the Government needs to control the growth of eBikes better, and enforce the vehicle regulations on a more uniform basis.

Following Xueue, Bram Rotthier from KU Leuven introduced the audience to various types of pedelecs, and argued that speed pedelecs offer significant benefits over cars: they do not get held up in traffic; are cheap to run; environmentally friendly; good for health, quiet and fun!

However, in Europe there are currently some regulatory issues with deciding the ratio of power that the motor produces compared to the muscle power input. Current EU Commission regulation says that it should be 4:1, but some question whether this is technology neutral. Bram believed that max power output would be a better qualifier for regulations.

There are also problems with local and national regulation, as member states do not know whether they should enforce helmet regulation, and whether this should be bicycle and motorcycle helmet. 

Finally, the session was closed by Hannes Neupert from Energy Bus, who spoke about pedelecs in general. In keeping with the theme of the conference, he identified pedelecs as the next evolution of the bicycle, even going so far as to suggest that they would make the bicycle obsolete! Despite currently being at a low stage of development, the huge increase in their use would lead to them being lighter, better designed and more efficient.

 

 

Politicians Love Iconic Projects. The Details Can Be Sorted Out Later

Joint Embassy Session: European Best Practice – a Cycling Love Affair

What are the Dutch-Danish-German ingredients for success in cycling as a mode of transportation, recreation and tourism? Of course, attractive infrastructure is key, but it’s also about the right products (e.g. pedelecs), education and positive campaigning. Counting cyclists by bicycle counters is a very cheap and effective tool. “It makes people feeling part of something big and creates a positive vibe”, said Niels Hoe from the Danish Cycling Embassy.

But while the design of good infrastructure is no rocket science, the process of delivering change is much more complicated, all speakers acknowledged. How to convince politicians to provide for cycling? “They love iconic projects, it brings a lot of media attention. The details you can sort out later”, Saskia Sluit from the Dutch Cycling Embassy said. Burkhard Stork from the German counterpart concluded by a positive note: “People want their cities back all over the world, this is driving change!”

 

 

Bicycle Paths Boost Local and National Economies: the Touristic Perspective

Future Perspectives and Trends in Cycling Tourism

Cheng-Kuang Fang from Taiwan reported how the Old Caoling Raiwayline was converted to a bicycle tourism route. Bicycle paths effectively boost the local economy and the tourism industry, generating 420 taiwanese dollar of economic impact per year. Demi Huang from Taiwan made a charming presentation with a lots of humor on how cycling tourism became a good tool to reinvent the romantic cycling culture of Taiwan. The first break through was the National Bikeway System in 2002, and in 2009 already 23,5% of Taiwanese people used bicycle on their holidays. Jim Sayer from the United States explained 10 indicitators of the boom in cycle tourism in North America, and reported several examples including Wisconsin where cycling tourism generates 1 billion Dollar ecomic impact per year.

Enrico Durbano presented the French national monitoring system and showed how to measure success with quantitative (counters) and qualitative (survey) methods. He reported the highest yearly grow on the new EuroVelo 17 route the Rhone by 22%!

 

 

Measuring the Cost-Effectiveness of Cycling to Improve its Appeal

Oiling the Economic Chain

This session featured presentations on measuring the impact of concrete investment projects in the cycling sector. The first presentation on the impact of the Rio de Janeiro public bike system was delivered by Mariano Perez. According to Perez, the system’s substitution rate of car trips is 23%, higher than for many similar systems. Taking into account the incentivizing effect for private cycling, the system pays off its investments in less than five years, which makes it attractive for public bodies.

Lars Moustgaard from the Danish Road Directorate presented results of the Danish national cycling investment fund. According to him, the evaluated projects financed under the fund show very positive results both in increasing the feeling of safety for cyclists and user satisfaction. What is more, 66% of the municipalities funded under the programme increased their own investments in cycling.

In the final presentation, Holger Haubold from the European Cyclists’ Federation gave examples of existing approaches for cost-benefit analysis in cycling and presented ECF’s plans to work more on this issue towards a unified methodology, which will be beneficial for cycling advocacy, proving that cycling is very cost-efficient compared to other transport modes.