International Transportation (67) 2 | 2015 32 KVB launches an integrated bike rental system Public transport, multimodal travel, sustainability In early May 2015, Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe (KVB), Germany’s fourth biggest municipal public transport provider, launched its bike rental system in cooperation with nextbike GmbH. With a total of 950 bikes available, users can now plan their journeys more flexibly because they can combine bike use with a bus or tram journey. This project is part of the strategy of the city of Cologne and the KVB to foster ecomobility by providing convenient and easily accessible public transport, cycling, car sharing and walking options. Author: Stephan Anemüller H aving operated the bike rental scheme for four months now, the KVB is very satisfied with this “third business field”. There are nearly 50,000 registered users and an average of about 1,000 rental transactions per day. While all population groups are represented, the share of jobholders and students is especially high. Obviously, it is still too early for a first evaluation, but the general trend points in the right direction. People’s mobility habits are changing, particularly in large cities: Urban dwellers want to stay mobile, but do not necessarily want to own a private car. Many people use public transport or mix their own ‘mobility cocktail’ consisting of bus and/ or rail combined with rental bikes or cars. That is why the bike sharing offer is a practical and important contribution to the “Cologne mobile in 2025” strategy. In the inner city of Cologne as well as in its Deutz, Mülheim, Braunsfeld, Lindenthal and Ossendorf districts, people can flexibly rent KVB bikes at the roadside and return them within any of the areas served (figure-1). At about 25 central locations such as Neumarkt, University of Cologne, Rudolfplatz, Zülpicher Platz, Breslauer Platz/ Cologne Main Station, Ebertplatz, Wiener Platz, Mülheim station and the “Sparkasse” at Butzweilerhof, bike rental stations have been established with up to ten bikes each. Every day a service team from the cooperation partner nextbike checks whether the intended number of bikes is available at each station, whether the bikes are parked properly and whether the number of available bikes meets local demand. In May, an additional KVB bike station for 20 bikes was put into operation at the Carlswerk site at Schanzenstrasse in Cologne-Mülheim. By the end of 2017, there will be up to 100 KVB bike stations at attractive locations. The KVB, the city of Cologne and the district agencies will jointly decide on the locations. Nahverkehr Rheinland GmbH (NVR), a public transport association for the southwest of North Rhine-Westphalia, supports these bike stations with about EUR 600,000. This support was contingent on the creation of a standardized access function for all chip card holders within the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Sieg (VRS), the transport providers’ association for the Rhine-Sieg area. KVB’s new offer has been integrated into the VRS scheme at the end of January 2015, which Photo: Stephan Anemüller BEST PRACTICE Bike Rental International Transportation (67) 2 | 2015 33 Bike Rental BEST PRACTICE means that the VRS chip cards are now included in KVB’s bike rental scheme (figure-2). The first 30 minutes of each journey are free for KVB customers holding VRS chip cards (e.g. jobholder tickets, monthly tickets or 60+ senior citizen’s tickets). Longer journeys cost € 1 for every subsequent 30-minute period. Customers who do not have VRS chip cards have to pay EUR 1 for the first 30-minutes also. All customers pay EUR 9 if they rent the bike for the entire day. Every customer has to register as a user before renting a bike for the first time. Customers with a VRS chip card simply hold their chip card up to the computer on the bike, enter their mobile phone number twice and accept the General Terms and Conditions (AGB) of the KVB. Then they are sent a PIN via mobile phone, which is their permanent access key in conjunction with the VRS chip card. The bike is released after these few steps. If VRS customers want to rent a bike for longer than 30 minutes, they have to sign up as users on the web page www.kvb-rad.de and fill in the registration form and indicate the desired means of payment. The web page also provides detailed information on the KVB bikes and their use. A customer without a VRS chip card registers on the web page www.kvb-rad.de or via the KVB mobil app. The nextbike offers have been integrated into the KVB app so that the customer does not have to download the nextbike app. Available bikes can be located via this app. Moreover, it is possible to register as a user by phone via a hotline. The customers, the KVB and nextbike can learn from one another how to optimize the offer. In the first weeks of operation, project manager Frank Gassen-Wendler talked to a number of users by phone. Some customers had parked the bikes out of the areas served and had to pay an extra fee. Other customers had not completed the return procedure so that they were charged the fee for a very long journey. The project manager was also very interested in hearing about the first customers’ experience with the new bike rental offer. By now, the software has been modified to simplify the return procedure. Moreover, improvements have been made to the user interface showing the current offer in the KVB app and on the web page. Effective advertising promotes the-offer KVB has succeeded in getting Peter and Stephan Brings, members of the German cult band “Brings”, to promote the new offer. In the promotional video 1 , Peter Brings, impersonating James Bond, is presented his new ‘official’ vehicle - a KVB bike. And Stephan Brings, known to be cycle enthusiast, is the protagonist of the print campaign (figure 3). A flyer with a print run of 30,000 has been distributed in the KVB vehicles, at customer centers, at information desks and via cooperation partners. Postcards, posters and stickers in buses and rail vehicles round off the advertising campaign. In addition, two animated videos intended for regular and occasional customers respectively, demonstrate how simple and easy it is to rent and use the bikes. These videos have also been published on YouTube.com/ kvbag and are available on the particular web page www. kvb-rad.de. The offer focuses on the University-of Cologne The University of Cologne is a priority area for the launch of the bike rental system. The university has about 50,000 students, 7,600 employees and a very large campus. The KVB bike is an excellent mode of transport to travel quickly form one university building to another. There are three central locations, the students’ service center, the cafeteria/ sports center and the faculty of human sciences, which are being served daily by the service team. It is intended to establish stationary bike rental facilities at these locations in cooperation with the university. Moreover, the university plans to set up its own bike station including a repair workshop and up to 2,000 parking spaces for private bikes. Within the scope of a pilot project, the students of the University of Cologne can use the KVB bikes under the same conditions as KVB’s regular customers. The KVB and the university plan to issue the semester tickets for students on chip cards. Until then, the students can use their university e-mail addresses to be granted the conditions of the regular customers, i.e. they can use the KVB bikes for free for up to 30 minutes per journey. A customer group analysis has revealed that young people are not the only ones to use the KVB bikes. Other sectors of the population are also very interested in the new offer. This is in line with the results of an evaluation report prepared by the German Federal Government. This report analyzes the state of bike rental schemes in other cities and rural districts. The users of the KVB bike offer can be grouped according to the various kinds of tickets used, i.e. semester ticket, job ticket, 60+ senior ticket etc. Cologne mobile in 2025 - Strategy-for sustainable transport development In 2014/ 15, together with the local transport companies and other organizations in Cologne, the municipality of Cologne prepared the “Cologne mobile in 2025” strategy as the basis for a future action plan. The objective of the strategy and the action plan is to keep traffic flowing in the metropolitan area of Cologne and thus to ensure the mobility of citizens and companies alike. Figure 1: KVB bikes are available at central locations Photo: Stephan Anemüller Figure 2: Access using a VRS chip card Photo: Fotostudio Heupel International Transportation (67) 2 | 2015 34 BEST PRACTICE Bike Rental The “Cologne mobile in 2025” strategy focuses on the development of eco-mobility. Therefore it promotes public transport, cycling, walking and other environmentally friendly transport modes. The mixture and - above all - the possibility of combining these mobility options help reduce the number of journeys by private car and thus support the city in reaching its various climatic and environmental objectives and in ensuring that there is sufficient road space for freely flowing traffic. The successful establishment of ecomobility presupposes the implementation of intelligent and above all sustainable measures for the long term. Innovative approaches are helpful as they can influence people’s lifestyle and traditional behavior (“the convenient car on the doorstep”, “status shown with an expensive private car in the company’s car park” etc.). Bike rental systems and car sharing are such innovative approaches. The KVB serves more than 800,000 passengers per day. Thus, its light rail and bus systems are the backbone of urban mobility. If the transport offers of the KVB did not exist, Cologne would be “immobile” already today due to permanent traffic gridlock. However, despite its about 60 lines and 900 stops, the KVB cannot connect all destinations door-to-door. For many road users, the last few hundred meters or the last mile are the reason why they do not shift from the private car to public transport. Furthermore, in the evening and at night, public transport systems cannot offer the same short intervals of service as during rush hour, for obvious economic reasons. As a result, many people who would like to go by bus or rail still do not use the public transport offers of the KVB. All over the world municipalities and transport companies are planning or optimizing bike rental schemes in order to minimize their local mobility problems at low cost and in an environmentally friendly way. It certainly makes sense to combine public transport with other environmentally friendly transport modes to foster the ecomobility. The cooperation between nextbike and the KVB is one element for implementing the “Cologne mobile in 2025” strategy. Ideally, the threshold to the entire public transport, including the bike rental scheme, must be as low as possible, for instance by making public transport accessible with a single ticket. So bikes are a real supplement to bus and rail. ■ 1 The video has been published on YouTube https: / / youtu.be/ KFsdhnNrUE8 and is broadcasted via KVB’s facebook channel. Figure 3: The KVB attracts attention with extensive poster advertising Photo: Stephan Anemüller Figure 4: Public transport is the backbone of urban transport Photo: Stephan Anemüller Stephan Anemüller Media spokesman, Kölner Verkehrs- Betriebe (KVB), Cologne (DE) stephan.anemueller@kvb-koeln.de Place your Ad in International Transportation 1/ 2016 Green and smart Sustainable Transport - Digital Mobility • Release date: 12 May 2016 • Advertising deadline: 14 April 2016 Tim Feindt • +49 (0) 40 23714-220 • tim.feindt@dvvmedia.com