Welcome to the Go Pedelec! project page

The Go Pedelec Handbook

Now available: The Go Pedelec! Handbook which informs you about many things on pedelecs which you will not have known even though you might have already intensively dealt with the topic - be it as a final customer or as a municipal decision maker.

Download the various language versions here:

Some of you the handbook layout and some articles will remind of the well-known ExtraEnergy test reports. But note: We have created a lot of new stuff for this handbook part of which you can find described briefly below (highlights).

Lottery

Price for the online survey: A folding pedelec.

Please fill in the online survey on the handbook after you have screened it. You may win a folding pedelec worth Euro 900.

Please note that besides the handbook there are further important results from the project which you may download for free.

A comprehensive handbook on pedelecs, which is interesting for you in your dual role as end user and municipal decision maker.
A document with information on pedelecs for municipal decision makers (in English and German)
A collection of "best practice examples" (case studies for the integration of pedelecs into mobility strategies from the six Go Pedelec! partner countries compiled by the Go Pedelec! project partners)
A document on pedelecs and renewable energy
A tremendous poster collection on pedelecs (in English and German, freely editable)
A report on a survey on pedelecs among local decision makers in six countries. Additionally, we've also carried out the following, however, those were events and thus are not longer available:
Roadshows: Road shows are no longer available as part of the project.
Expert trainings: Training sessions were conducted from January 2012 to March 2012. In some countries such as Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria and Italy these trainings are intended to be continued.
For those of you who are not only interested on the product at local level, but also at expert level: a transcription of lectures on expert trainings (currently only in German, not yet publicly released. Book publication planned.).
A brochure that was specifically developed for municipal decision makers in 2011
A brochure with tips and tricks for final customers

And here some highlights from the handbook...

A small glossary around pedelecs.

p. 26: Why it would make sense to ban the sales of batteries. A company offering already today pedelecs without batteries (the battery may be rented separately). Why lithium from batteries and other substances are currently not recycled although according recycling plants already exist. The potential "second life" of a used battery which does not provide any more enough capacity for the usage in a pedelec.

p. 53: Results and conclusions from a survey in six European countries where municipal decision makers have been interviewed on topics around pedelecs. Which are the main target groups for pedelecs from the point of view of municipal decision makers? Reasons as seen from municipal decision-makers for subsidizing and promoting pedelecs. How many of the interviewees already have ridden a pedelec. Differences between pedelec forerunner countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and Austria and other countries included in the survey (Czech Republic, Hungary and Italy).

p. 30: Hints on safe usage of batteries prepared for manufacturers, retailers and for end users.

p. 64: Why the fine control of the electric motor might make riding a pedelec even healthier than cycling and than many other kinds of sports.

p. 60: How much energy does a pedelec annually need? How much area do you need to provide the annual electricity demand via renewable energy from different sources? Why you should take a closer look when buying green electricity and what is the real effect of it. A core question: Does the pedelec substitute car rides or not? If yes, which percentage of the pedelec trips would have been made otherwise by car? Is there practical experience available?

In particular three articles may be recommended to municipal decision makers and tourist managers:

charging infrastructure (p. 78)
requests to local politicians (p. 80)
requests to national politicians (p. 81)

What is relevant regarding the quality assessment of a pedelec?, In particular what is the meaning of the CE-label and why its implementation turns out so difficult when applied to pedelecs. More on a standard designed particularly for pedelecs which is to define all issues relevant to pedelecs in the future. Which standards apply to pedelecs in general and which is the current most comprehensive testing certificate (GS-certificate)

Pedelec Best Practices

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Best Practices on pedelecs especially for municipal decision makers now available for download!

Austria

Active Access download Within the EU project „Active Access“ a pedelec test among 20 elderly citizens in Graz was conducted. Read here the findings and the results of the test.	Almenland download Within a cooperation of the naturepark „Almenland“ and „Verbund“, Austria's biggest electricity utility, a pedelec rental system was set up. This example shows how a pedelec rental system can be implemented in a touristic region.	Wien Energie download Wien Energie, Vienna's biggest energy provider and KTM, an Austrian bike company, set up a big pedelec test initiative. During two months 50 people extensively tested pedelecs and shared their experiences in an online blo
Landrad download In Vorarlberg, a province of Austria, an extensive research project with 500 pedelecs was conducted. Read here the findings and the results of the test.	Wörthersee download In this best practice a pedelec rental system in the Wörthersee lake region in Carinthia, Austria, is introduced. Read here how the project was realized.	Spar download The Austrian food store chain „Spar“ set up several initiatives in the field of pedelecs such as for example the erection of electricity charging stations in front of their shops.
Let's go solar download Read here how a youth centre in the Austrian province Vorarlberg promotes the use of pedelecs among young people.

Czech Republic

Tanec Praha download It is time to replace ordinary vehicles with electrical ones. Read here how to use electric bikes in festival events.	Green map Praha download Read here about a new map not only for cyclists which helps with the orientation in Prague and provides information how to move comfortably, easily and fast within the city.	Gadgets download To make electric bikes more practical and efficient, we present here an additional equipment for your e-bike.
Bike training download Read here how to safely ride your e-bike.	Ebike rental in Pec download Practical example on how to use e-bikes in tourism.	PREkolo ebike rental download A cooperation between e-bike company and electricity provider makes e-bike rental in Prague possible.
Fleet for Vodafone download Read here more about how employees of Vodafone are using e-bikes on a daily basis.	Strike on bike download Is there anything positive about strike in public transport? Yes, there is. Read here.	Advertisment with ebikes download This practice shows how e-bikes could be a very attractive and remarkable promotion.
Ebikes in contest download Would you like to know how e-bikes manage to combat with normal bikes? Read more here about the results.

Germany

Stuttgart download	Aachen download	ZUMO download
Allgäu download	Soest download	Aachen download
Stuttgart e-call-a-bike download

Hungary

GPS based cycling path download

Italy

National financial incentives download The Ministry of Environment has issued a call for projects for bike-sharing measures with pedelecs combined with energy efficiency and renewables (innovative systems, installation of charging stations, use of renewable energy).	Pedelec rental - Bicincittà download Through the use of an electronic pass, each individual user can take his bicycle or pedelec from any bike-parking stand present in the city and return it wherever they find an open parking space - even in a different rack from the original.	Municipality of Brescia download The aim of the campaign called “today I try another way” was to convert municipalities employees who use cars to get to work using pedelec and to reduce traffic, during working hours and lunch break.
University of Catania - Probici download Employees, researchers and professors of Catania University can borrow a pedelec and use it for work-based trips, thus avoiding to use University cars or their own vehicles.	Municipality incentives of Naples download To encourage people to use electric scooters and pedelecs the municipality of Naples and manufacturers of electric vehicles signed a joint agreement: the municipality paid 40% of the production cost of these scooters, and the manufacturer applied a 15% discount to the sales price.	Veneto region download Veneto Region has carried out an awareness campaign financing the purchase of pedelecs and providing €360,000 for capital towns Venice, Verona, Treviso, Padua and Rovigo. In order to regulate the initiative, a “Letter of Intent” signed by the Veneto Region and pedelecs retailers/manufacturers has been prepared.
Pescara download A Pescara Company, in 2010 launched an incentive plan to help own employees to purchase a pedelec to be used both for travel from home to work, both for leisure, financing the 60-70% of the pedelec value and the remaining part could be paid in 14 months, and deducted from their payslip, without interest rates.	Bologna - BIBO download With own resources, a group of active citizens called "Primavera urbana”, purchased an electric rickshaw and put it at the disposal of citizens, with the help of volunteers cyclists who carrying, for free, all the people who need to travel within the historical city center.

Netherlands

Bicycle highways Utrecht download

The Netherlands are building a network of high speed bicycle routes. These bicycle highways are meanth to seduce the commuters who now use their private car on a distance of 15 km or less. The national government has reserved 21 million Euros for 16 bicycle highways paid by the ministry of Infrastructure. The provinces and municipalities contribute another 60 million Euros which makes a total of € 81 million for realising high quality bicycle infrastructure in urban areas.

Regional bike map download

In The Netherlands 31% of all social-recreational trips are done by bike. To serve and promote recreational cycling The Netherlands always have had bicycle signing in recreational area’s. Nowadays new signing systems are introduced, combined with several services.

Electric public bike download

Since 2003 The Netherlands has had a nationwide public bike system, named OV-Fiets (= public transport bike). The company 'OV-Fiets' is owned by the NS, the Dutch railways. OV-Fiets has rental locations at public transport locations such as railway stations, metro stations, bus and tramway stations and at Park + Ride locations. OV-Fiets is growing fast.

Recreational junction network download

Bicycle highways download

The Netherlands are building a network of high speed bicycle routes. These bicycle highways are meanth to seduce the commuters who now use their private car on a distance of 15 km or less. The national government has reserved 21 million Euros for 16 bicycle highways paid by the ministry of Infrastructure. The provinces and municipalities contribute another 60 million Euros which makes a total of € 81 million for realising high quality bicycle infrastructure in urban areas.

Pedelec promotion as part of mobility
management download
The combination of pedelec promotion
and mobility management measures
can be very effective. This case from
Eindhoven city region show pedelec as an
effcient tool in mobility management.

Training pedelec riders download
Regional bodies for Road safety
have the impression that many
accidents occur with pedelec users.
Therefore trainings are organized to take away fear from mostly mostly elderly people
to participate in traffic.

Pedelec lease download
Pedelecs are relatively expensive
compared to conventional
bicycles. A leasesytem is than a good
option to overcome this constraint.

GoPedelec Roadshow in Utrecht

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From 26 till 27 of September 2011 the GoPedelec! Roadshow was present in the office park of Rijnsweerd in Utrecht. With about 4800 employees and about 2500 parking places there is a structural lack of parking space near the offices. By means of changing towards the e-bike, public transport and other mobility management measures, a drastic reduction on the usage of parking places should be realized. It is therefore that the municipality of Utrecht as partner of the GoPedelec! project invited the test track to have employees from all the office building test pedelecs.

The test track was located on the venue of ASR insurances, a company with about 2300 employees. ASR realizes that with only 1000 parking spaces near their offices and a limited capacity in public transport from the city center of Utrecht, that bicycles and especially electric bicycles might be part of the solution for their mobility problem. The insurance company not only hosted for two days the event but also showed the already existing infrastructure for parking and charging for e bikes and conventional bikes. Another part of their actual transport policies to reduce car parking is to forbid for all employees living in a range of 10 km to park their cars on the property of the company. This also has a positive effect on use of bikes and electric bikes. As a result of this limiting parking measure car transport has reduced by 7 %, PT has increased by 5% while transport to the office by bike increased by 3 %. (source Pijl and Vermeulen 2011).

On 28 of September the test track was located on the parking lot of one of the municipalities office centers. (about 1200 employees) By means of an efficient communication plan even employees from other locations at a distance of about 3 km came to the test track to try the electric assisted bicycles. A total of about 100 test riders participated during the event which took place from 11.00 am and 3 pm.

Bicycle parking in Utrecht

With about 100.000 visitors on bicycle, the share of cycling in the center of Utrecht is about 60%. Due to this high figure enormous bicycle parking problems exist in the city center. Looking for solutions the municipality of Utrecht has organized a competition to collect proposals for solutions to optimize the existing parking facilities. About 200 proposals were received and summarized in a book of inspiration which is available for download here.

A video by bicycle instead of by car in the center of Utrecht you see here: bicycle rush hour Utrecht

Text :Ton Daggers based on report R. Ditewig and text Angela Budde ExtraEnergy

Photos: GoPedelec.nl, IBC

Go Pedelec! test track on the Venceslau Square in Prague

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Within the frame of the 10^th European Mobility Week the Prague City Hall in cooperation with the Association of the New Prague Town and the Go Pedelec! consortium decided to organize the campaign "Wenceslas Square car-free". Thanks to this special event on Sunday, September 18, 2011, the whole square will only be accesible for pedestrians and bikers. From 10 am to 4 pm the square will be car-free as usually it is stuck by vehicles – passing through or parking along.

120 million e-bikes on the streets of China

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E-bikes on Shanghai's streets Compared with Europe the number of e-bikes on the streets of China is immense. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, a car is (still) just too expensive for the Chinese people. Secondly, China tries to keep the air in its megacities as clean as possible. For this reason the number of e-bikes in China expoded years before the people in Europe even dreamed about these electric vehicles. However, the e-bikes in China are different to those now sold in Europe. They look like a mixture of scooters and bicycles, are usually heavier than pedelecs and contain a lead battery not a lithium battery. Furthermore, the electricity for the batteries come from dirty coal power plants.

energieautark -- GoPedelec!

The Go Pedelec Handbook

Lottery

And here some highlights from the handbook...

Pedelec Best Practices

GoPedelec Roadshow in Utrecht

Bicycle parking in Utrecht

Go Pedelec! test track on the Venceslau Square in Prague

120 million e-bikes on the streets of China

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