Increasing bicycle usage as a means of public transport has become an urgent priority for the City of Tehran. The rise of congested traffic hours in the city has led to traffic jams and high levels of carbon emission which consequently have had adverse effects on citizens’ health and the environment.

This project is aligned with the “Car-Free Tuesdays” campaign that is an initiative sponsored by the Mayor of Tehran and is promoted all around the city. In recent months, due to the impact of COVID-19 and social distancing measures for public transport, bicycle usage has doubled.

The project's main aim is to create a transport modal shift from using personal motor vehicles to cycling for local commuting.

The main objectives are as follows:

• Increase citizens well-being
• Decrease traffic congestion and lower carbon emissions
• Improve traffic management
• Develop human-centric urban mobility systems
• Implement and maintain social distancing measures for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The following actions have been undertaken:

1. Bike lanes: Promote the culture of cycling and create an appropriate platform for the development of clean transportation. The Municipality has established specific cycling routes in the city.

2. Campaigns: Encourage public participation to use bicycles.  Various campaigns such as “Car-free Tuesdays”, “Safar-e Eshgh”, “Naqsh-e Charkh”, “Rekaab & Ketaab” and “Bike, Tehran, Life” have been implemented.

• The “Car-Free Tuesdays” campaign is sponsored and promoted by the Tehran Mayor and has encouraged many people to use bicycles.
• The Safar-e Eshgh campaign is organized by the Municipality to coincide with Muharram and Safar (1st and 2nd months of the Islamic calendar) religious ceremonies. Each cyclist should ride more than 960 km to equal the distance between Tehran and Karbala. The top 10 cyclists will be awarded a travel allowance for a trip to Karbala (a Muslim religious city in Iraq). One cyclist is selected as the top cyclist and wins a special award.
• “Rekaab and Ketaab” (Book & Bike) is a competition to promote cycling and book reading.
• Bike, Tehran, Life” campaign is a competition to promote cycling among citizens and data sharing in the social media channel of the Bike App.

3. Bike Sharing: "Bdood" start-up, in collaboration with Tehran Municipality, has provided bike-sharing services for citizens resulting in around 4,000 daily trips.

Tehran Municipality has entered into a partnership with the MoveMobility group in the Netherlands who have developed bike apps in many countries. Furthermore, creating a user-friendly app requires local knowledge regarding citizens preferences and requirements. A contract was signed with a local company, Rajman, who have already developed a way-finding and tracking system in Iran/Tehran.

• The Lead agencies for the project are the Traffic and Transportation Organization of Tehran Municipality and the Tehran Municipality ICT Organization (TMICTO).
• The contractor is an Iranian company called Rajman Company.
• A consultant is a Dutch company called MoveMobility.

Since the COVID 19 outbreak, the statistics show that bicycle usage has doubled. Currently the cycling mode share in Tehran is about 0.8% and is forecast to reach 0.9% by the end of Q1 -2021. Reducing electric and energy consumption and thus, reducing pollution and promoting a healthier lifestyle are the direct impacts of the project's success.

Statistical data from June to December 2020:

• Registered users: more than 5800
• 3% of the users: female
• 97% of the users: male
• 17% of the users: under the age of 15
• 25% of the users: between the age of 20 and 30
• 45% of the users: between the age of 30 and 45
• 13% of the users: above the age of 45.

The City has created 600km of cycle paths, 200 bike stations, and provides 2,000 smart bikes for sharing. It is expected that every 1000 km of cycling leads to a reduction in petrol consumption and CO2 emission of approximately 70 litres and 210 km/gr per cyclist, respectively.

The lack of bicycle routes and the difficulties in creating such routes due to safety measures are among the most significant challenges. Moreover, the city’s slope in the south to the north is another considerable challenge. This has led to additional service provision through the app, such as recommending adapted routes to cyclists.

Some other barriers are as follows:

• Low-speed internet in some parts of the metropolitan area
• Shortage of secure bike routes
• Shortage of bicycle parking racks
• Bicycles are not allowed on public transport vehicles such as buses.

The project made use of GPS technology, together with smartphone applications. The most important criteria that cities must meet in order to successfully implement a similar project is to consider the technical issues such as developing the back-end and front-end of the mobile app and requirements for converting GPS data to anonymous route/speed information needed for traffic analysis that any city can capture and put in its bike app development project.

Also, the project has scaled up by licensing the service provision to a private third party.

Smart Tehran: https://stc.tehran.ir/

Smart Tehran Center: https://smartehran.medium.com/

Bike Tehran website: http://bike.tehran.ir/

WINNERS OF THE 4th WeGO AWARDS: http://we-gov.org/wego-awards/ 

Video of 4^th WeGo AWARDS Pre-Ceremony: https://b2n.ir/r10266 

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