In times when environmental protection and combating climate change are increasingly important, and new models of the sharing economy are being tested, there is a need to redefine urban mobility.

Therefore, in 2018 the German bike association (ADFC) initiated a pilot project, called “fLotte Berlin”, for the free use of cargo bikes in Berlin. Today, the project unites two projects: the original “fLotte” project based on the cooperation between the German bike association together with commercial and private sponsors, and the municipal project “fLotte kommunal” in cooperation with several Berlin local authorities. The original “fLotte Berlin” project started at the beginning of 2018, and “fLotte kommunal” joined in autumn 2018. The association is responsible for the project’s coordination and leadership, and it implements the project together with the support of the city and the local authorities. The objective of the project is to give Berliners the opportunity to try out cargo bikes and to encourage further procurement of community and private cargo bikes and ultimately to drive behavioural change in the use and means of transport.

The “fLotte kommunal” project is being jointly implemented by the German bike association and Berlin local authorities with the support of the city of Berlin while the original “fLotte Berlin” project is implemented by the German bike association. Overall, the cargo bikes are available at both public and private locations such as local community centres, neighbourhood centres, children’s centres, youth and women’s centres, museums, public libraries and also at private shops such as bike shops, organic supermarkets, cafés and bookshops. The locations are responsible for renting the bikes. A voluntary worker (bike patron) has been identified for each bike, who gives 2-3 hours a month to take care of the bike’s maintenance.

Today, there are 139 cargo bikes at various locations all over Berlin (as of 14.07.2020). So far, seven local authorities have joined the municipal project line-up and more local authorities are interested in joining. During the Corona Pandemic, 90 out of 120 locations have had to shut down. Many centres are slowly reopening, but they are struggling with the implementation of the strict hygiene standards required to ensure the safety of users. Therefore, under the hashtag #CargobikesAgainstCorona, in order to encourage the usage of the cargo bikes during the lock down phase, “fLotte” called for requests from community and solidarity projects to rent the cargo bikes for longer periods (several weeks instead of 1-3 days) to support their communities. Cargo bikes have been used by many solidarity projects, for instance for local neighbour-to-neighbour support services and for mobile mini-libraries, and also by the Berlin Food Bank (Berliner Tafel) for food deliveries.

The “fLotte kommunal” project is financed by the city of Berlin, as part of the implementation of the Berlin Energy and Climate Protection Program 2030, which sponsors around half of the cargo bikes and provides additional financial resources. Berlin local authorities also contribute financial and human resources. The cargo bikes from the original “fLotte Berlin” project were mostly provided by companies, shops and private donators who promote the bikes in front of their shops and local neighbourhood centres. The bike association handles the coordination and management of the project and the voluntary workers.

Since January 2018, the bikes have been rented 10,170 times by 5,391 users, who each travelled an average distance of 11 kilometres (as of July 14, 2020). This means that 293,238 km have already been travelled by cargo bikes in Berlin, which equals a distance of about 7.3 times around the world. This not only has a positive impact on the health of the bike users but it also benefits the environment, reduces noise and air pollution in Berlin, and at the same time it helps to fulfil the city’s emission reductions by reducing CO₂ emissions and it also reduces traffic congestion in crowded city areas. In addition, the project promotes the ideas of sharing and shared community resources, transforming these buzzwords from theory into an everyday experience.

Since December 2018, there has been one user survey, which gives insights on the use and wishes of 5,296 users (45% of users responded in the survey at least once). The motivation of users to rent a cargo bike varies: 52% of cargo users rent a cargo bike to transport heavy objects, 34% of users rent a bike out of curiosity to try a cargo bike, 31% to transport children, 18% for an excursion or biking tour or other reasons. 50% of the respondents used the cargo bikes more than once. Finally, 40% of users say they would have used the car, if they had not had the option to borrow a cargo bike, thus saving an estimated total amount of 19,588 kg of carbon emissions.

There also is a big difference between districts and neighbourhoods. Generally, in Berlin, the further away the district is to the city centre, the lower the occupancy rate. In the city centre, the occupancy rate in ideal conditions is close to 100%, while in the districts furthest away the occupancy rate only reaches around 50% under ideal conditions.  A final evaluation is not available yet, but there may be different reasons for this such as density and availability of public transport, social structure and bike culture.

A key challenge is to identify suitable locations for the bikes and to achieve a high and stable occupancy rate (good location, within residential areas, close to public transport, high visibility, long opening hours, and to a lesser degree secure parking options during the night and a certain bike affinity of the hosts).

Local authorities also need to identify human resource needs and build a motivated and dedicated team to support the project. Occasionally it was difficult to find bike patrons (voluntary workers in charge of the maintenance of one bike).

Generally, however, the bike association found that despite its early doubts, the project was exceptionally well received; it was rather easy to identify partners for locations; the feedback from users was overwhelmingly positive and vandalism was very low. The bike association believes that the timing of the project was perfect, and that it really fits the expectations of an urban population which is looking for alternative urban mobility options and which is interested and dedicated to concepts of community sharing.

• Thorough analysis of suitable locations based on specific criteria (see above).
• An early evaluation in the form of user surveys has also been very useful to discover more about the needs and wishes of cargo bike users and the reduced occupancy rate in certain districts (see above).
• Keeping the rent of cargo bikes free has turned out to work very well for the pilot project in Berlin (easy access for everyone, low administrative costs and no accounting for the centres that host the bikes and pursue other activities during the day, low vandalism and high feeling of responsibility of users who value the exceptional offer they are being given and who take very good care of the cargo bikes, judicial advantage for liability questions).
• Renting the cargo bikes for a duration of 1-3 days turned out to be a good frequency to ensure the workload for bike hosts remains at a manageable level. A shorter duration might be envisaged at a later stage.
• A certain amount of publicity, enough to get the project going, but not too much (to allow for good management) is important.
• The cooperation between the city, the districts and the bike association has worked well. The bottom-up initiation of the project by the bike association, and through the management of partnerships and voluntary workers of the association, was a good match for the city administration.
• The cooperation with private businesses also worked well and this allowed shops to promote the bikes as well as their trade, and this enabled the project to grow quicker.
• A final suggestion is to keep the design and equipment of cargo bikes rather simple (only occasional e-bikes, no particular budgets).

Webpages: https://flotte-berlin.de/; https://flotte-berlin.de/kommunal/

Interactive map : https://flotte-berlin.de/lastenrad-ausleihen/standorte/

https://www.facebook.com/fLotteBerlin