Bicycle Parking — A Lane Towards Carbon-Neutral City Centers
Regardless of a mode of transport, parking availability is one of the crucial determinants impacting mobility choices. This is related to the matter of accessibility — allowing users to get easily to the preferred mode of transport then leave (park) it and switch to other mode in order to continue the trip. There is a growing interest in integrating bikes location data with city’s intelligent transport platform, as well as in using bikes as efficient last-mile transport for delivery services.
If availability of car parking induces travelling by personal automobile and in general car ownership, then availability of bike parking can encourage cycling. That was the general assumption which led to research undertaken by The European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF). Initial research confirmed indeed a relationship between parking regulations and modal choice, namely that:
1) cities with smaller car parking requirements (less car parking per apartment) have a lower car mode share
2) higher number of bicycle parking spaces in apartment buildings corresponds with a higher cycle mode share in a city[1].
Bike Parking Standards
In order to make urban policies more consistent with sustainable development goals, recent EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (revised in June 2018) requires from new and renovated buildings to install charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. This means that building policy should be part of sustainable mobility planning. And if we think about buildings contributing to green and sustainable transport, we should equip them not only with EV chargers infrastructure but also with secure, docks- and power sockets-equipped bike parking, which can encourage more frequent bikes use.
The recommendations by ECF focus on avoiding car parking oversupply caused by minimum parking regulations, while introducing minimum bicycle parking standards in new buildings.
As stated by ECF, we can develop the concept of “low-energy buildings” into “low-traffic buildings” inducing as little car traffic as possible. Such buildings should have a walking distance to public transport and access to a good quality of cycling infrastructure, bike parkings included.
Currently, national minimum regulations (32%) on bike parking are clearly outnumbered by the (53%) national minimum car parking regulations[2]. Among European countries, France has introduced one of the most bike-friendly standards for buildings. The country imposed a maximum number of car parking spaces that can be provided in new developments, at the same time requiring an area that must be reserved for bicycle parking in residential buildings as well as in workplace buildings. Similarly, in Luxembourg bicycle parking facilities are required by national legislation in new government buildings[3].
Apart from providing bicycle parking, the policy to influence commuting schemes on a city level and to encourage switch to cycling, could subsidize bike purchases, including cargo bikes, to promote their faster adoption (similarly like in case of EV subsidies). A global “Bike Mayors” initiative which promotes cycling among city mayors[4] is a leading by example approach — important to raise public awareness about mobility-related carbon footprint.
Many cities face problems with first/last mile integration. Bus ridership can be increased through better integration of systems and improved access to stations. While for short routes it may be expensive to deploy bus transit, (e)bikes and (e)scooters can be the answer. Integrated approach to transport and Smart Mobility planning should encompass effective parking management and its integration with mobility ecosystem in order to support city main Points-of-Interest. They can be located polycentrically (which means there are several main points of activity in the city) or in a dispersed way (with scattered points of activity). Regardless of the city structure, sustainable and compacted urban development requires prioritizing low-carbon transport modes. Both with regard to private and commercial mobility.
Low-Carbon Logistics
Cargo bikes are a promising alternative to help people get around without cars as well as to serve for last mile delivery. Rentable cargo bikes provided by Leuven city enable families with kids to go for shopping car-free, thus reducing traffic and pollution in the city centre. As an economically viable solution, cargo bikes can also support transition into sustainable, carbon-neutral logistics and complement other, more ecofriendly freight modes like rail, electric vehicles or waterways.
Bike couriers may become of crucial importance when certain city districts will be closed to cars (especially in case of Ultra Low/Zero Emission Zones eliminating internal combustion cars) and to meet the growing demand for “same day delivery” caused by online retail purchases or restaurant orders. In congested areas bikes are fast and reliable mode of delivery for goods with a low volume and weight. DHL Express in Netherlands already uses cargo bikes for 10% of their routes. And in Amsterdam those bikes are integrated with multimodal transport encompassing electric vans, boats and cargo bikes to the ultimate destination. Similarly in Amsterdam, PostNL replaced more than 60 car journeys with cargo bikes[5].
Introducing cargo bikes to meet ambitious goals of transition to zero-emission sustainable logistics, means proper planning for logistical chains and providing micro hubs where shipments will be delivered and reloaded from larger vehicles into bikes serving last mile delivery. Such kind of logistics hub has been created for The Kooperative Nutzung von Mikrodepots (KoMoDo) pilot projectin Berlin, where parcels from different operators are being delivered to one central point in the city, then loaded on mentioned cargo bikes[6].
Transferring goods from trucks to smaller vehicles requires both physical space and smart software in order to assure land use optimization and time efficiency. Parking dedicated for city hubs should be planned as multi-purpose and shared facility. Optimally if loading and unloading spaces could be reserved, for example through an application allowing check-in and check-out, as in the case of Lisbon. For this solution the city also plans to integrate parking payments from the application and introduction of 20-minutes free loading/unloading which could be enforced by information from sensors detecting the presence of a vehicle and sent to the control centre[7]. The success factors of that solutions are increasing rotation, enforcement, improving efficiency and mitigating traffic problems.
Paris City Council in a series of experiments assessed that distributed pick up/drop off areas are more efficient for last-mile delivery improvements than urban consolidation centers. What is more, those areas called “Urban Logistics Spaces” were using underutilized spaces like for example underground parking[8]. The bottom line is that thanks to software — the platform integrating information about possible places to park/pick-up/drop-off or load/reload, the logistics and mobility efficiency can be increased, without the need for regulation. On the other hand, underground parking serving logistics functions addresses noise, pollution and safety concerns caused by delivery vehicles parking on the streets, sometimes resulting in double parking. In case when such space would be located not within an open area but at guarded parking, seamless and digital access control to the facility should be taken into consideration.
Data Standarization
Data sharing and integration of logistics with traffic information can help in establishing incentives for off-peak hours delivery, spreading out loading/unloading times, introducing lower parking charges for EV fleet etc. The need for integration of cycling data with the intelligent transport systems, has been raised as a solution which can improve convenience and safety, for example by warning about collision, rerouting and making it easier to find bike parking. Recently proposed creation of CyclingDataHub could integrate localized cycling data with the city’s ITS and multimodality ecosystem[9], this way facilitating modal shift from car — once parked — to another mode of mobility, bikes included. To enable creation of such city-level Smart Mobility platform, standardization and interoperability need to be assured.
One of the recent initiatives to standardize mobility data within a city was implemented by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. The city developed a digital tool calledthe Mobility Data Specification (MDS) which is API standard allowing to collect and compare real-time data from Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) providers[10]. Collecting that data can support city in making policy decisions about transport but also in more efficient enforcement like warning micromobility providers if their users park scooters illegally. Even possessing such information, cities will be able to do such enforcement on condition that they are given control to do that by national policy (which is in contradiction with the recent California attempt to take back city right in regulating micromobility companies[11]).
Regulating Micromobility Parking
Continuing the matter of enforcement, one of the good examples of successful (and large-scale) integration of technology with better enforcement is Shanghai’s project with dockless shared bikes. Over 890.000 dockless bikes (which is 60% of the total shared bikes in the city) have been registered with traffic police system, enabling better governance. Chinese cities use smart lock technology enabling to park bikes next to docks when they are full. This allows to add capacity to existing docks and limit bike redistribution[12]. In order to help a city regulate bike parking, some applications, like Mobike use geofencing technology to warn users where they cannot leave their bikes. In the prohibited for parking area the message pops up and for repeated violations users may be fined or have their accounts suspended. That project resulted in 30% decrease in illegal parking.
Dedicated parking for bikes and scooters, supported by education and good communication with users (like marking off space where parking is encouraged, virtual maps displaying streets safe for scooting and places where it is forbidden to park) are low costs operations that can increase safety. Streets are valuable public asset, and micromobility companies wanting to use them, should cooperate with cities requiring from their users proper bikes and scooters usage, eliminating sidewalk riding and improper parking. Ultimately, regulated micromobility and parking promote culture of usage of the shared streets and make them more functional for all users.
Conclusion
Cross integration between Smart Parking, multimodality, bicycle parking and ITS — together with national minimum bicycle parking requirements — can influence mode choice and support achieving green and low carbon mobility. Regulating i.e. increasing number of parking spaces for bikes, while integrating cycling data with multimodal transport (enabling seamless travel across different modes of mobility), can increase bicycle usage both for private and logistics purposes. It can also be a turning point for cities to abandon “lane thinking” in transport strategies, and make transition into “hub-oriented” mobility planning, focused on the mode change, walkability and better access to last-mile transport like bikes or scooters.
That paradigm shift and making city centers car-free need careful consideration of how city manages cars or bikes through parking policies and provision of parking infrastructure. To efficiently manage traffic in today’s reality where most of the transport network is built around cars, cities need to strike the right balance between provision of parking in strategic locations where people live, work and relax, and encouraging to switch to green mobility whenever possible. Digital layer interconnecting Smart Parking with bikes and MaaS providers on a common platform packed in the form of an application, can be a tool for city residents, commuters, companies. When used on a broader scale, that tool can help cities in achieving low-carbon mobility. The concept of “low-traffic” buildings generating little car traffic, linked with public and bike infrastructure, complements the integrated approach to carbon reduction and the way towards transformation into sustainable, green, and walkable city centers.
[1]European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF), Making Buildings Fit for Sustainable Mobility, p. 13.
[2]ECF, p. 8.
[3]See ECF, p. 16, 18.
[4]https://bycs.org/our-work/bicycle-mayors/
[5]Transport Decarbonisation Alliance (TDA), Zero Emission Urban Freight, p. 22, 25.
[6]TDA p. 35
[7]TDA p. 33.
[8]TDA p. 33.
[9]https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-articles/78216/digital-future-cycling-data-its-encouraging-cyclists/
[10]https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/los-angeles-mobility-data-specification-dockless-rideshare/546692/
[11]https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/05/california-state-laws-shared-mobility-city-rules-ab-1112/589705/
[12]https://thecityfix.com/blog/solve-chinas-bike-sharing-woes-hangzhou-shanghai-turn-bluetooth-geofencing-hui-jiang-harshita-jamba/
