Electric Bikes and Cargo Bikes: TDM Policy and Infrastructure Implications

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Mark Stosberg, RideAmigos associate and member of the City of Bloomington Bicycle & Pedestrian Safety Commission, has owned a cargo bike for eight years, and and electric cargo bike for five. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Commission is an organization dedicated to creating a safe environment for bikers, runners, and pedestrians.

 

Cargo Bikes

Cargo bikes are larger than regular bikes, causing parking inconveniences for those who use them.The solution is simple: to create custom parking spots that are wider and larger in common cargo destinations like schools and stores.

 

Electric Bikes

Mark recommends reading the League of American Bicyclists’ article “Electric Bicycles: Public Perceptions & Policy.” It can be found here: http://bikeleague.org/sites/default/files/E_bikes_mini_report.pdf

 

When is an e-bike a bicycle and when is it a motorized vehicle? Where should e-bikes be allowed to ride?

E-bikes appear to be almost a motorcycle, causing many people to consider them to be vehicles. This prevents them from being as convenient as a regular bicycle. Mark suggests that communities should “focus on policies that are more about how fast bikes are going and not try to separate policies for e-bikes rather and regular bikes.”

 

“A large segment that I see growing is the Electric Cargo Bike. Electric and cargo pair really well together because the boost of electricity allows you to carry more cargo.”

 

 

Unlocking the Treasure Chest of Real Time Parking Space Availability Data

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John Couvrette is the regional vice president of T2 Systems, a parking management platform that provides solutions through parking occupancy and data collection technology. He has played an instrumental role in developing the real-time occupancy platform design, which has evolved into a useful tool for solving contemporary transportation challenges using real time parking space availability data.

 

The most popular statistics in parking:

  • 30% of urban traffic are drivers looking for a place to park.
  • The reality is that there are plenty of parking spaces available – drivers just don’t know where they are.

 

“I avoid going to downtown areas because of parking hassles, but if I can have a predictable experience when I get down there, then it certainly opens the door for people like me to get downtown and enjoy the city,” John recounts as being a situation that all commuters can relate to. In order to address this parking challenge, he introduces the idea of a more predictable parking experience.

 

How to create a more predictable parking experience:

John proposes the utilization of vehicle counting technology. This would allow universities, municipalities, private operators, and transit systems to “be better able to manage the parking inventory…to manage enforcement…and to determine the notion of the optimal transient parking rates using data…”

 

How real time parking space availability data will solve transportation challenges:

  • Using parking behavior analytics to build best practices.
  • Using data analysis to determine transient parking rates.
  • Improving parking experience for consumers.
  • Delivering increased customer service.
  • Reducing traffic congestion.

 

“It’s interesting [how] when you introduced me you said ‘We’ve got John here who’s going to talk about parking, and parking is pretty cool’… as odd as that might sound, parking is pretty cool and when you can start taking this type of data and using it in an intelligent manner to help drive a sustainable story, a good customer satisfaction story, and better operations, it actually is cool to be on the parking side.”

 

As trip-planning technology and parking space availability continue to integrate, cooperation between the RideAmigos trip-planning platform and parking space availability data could successfully pave the way for less congestion, less pollution, and a happier commute.

 

Six Cool Facts About the New Waves of Bikeshare

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Bikes Make Life Better is a consulting firm dedicated to helping large organizations to put people on bikes. Kurt Wallace, Co-Founder and Director, discusses the potential for the future of public and private bikeshare. He likens the proliferation of bikeshare systems to that of the use of cell phones, “First there was one cell phone, and now there are a zillion different kinds.”

Many conventional public bikeshare systems share these features:

  • Large systems – thousands of bikes.
  • Public systems that are reliant on stations.

Private bikeshare, in contrast, seems to get less attention in the modern bikeshare era.

A good example of the practicality that private bikeshare has to offer is Facebook’s use of the system. Facebook offers “different trip types and different needs” for its employees with an inventory of bikes that are faster, lighter, and have different gear settings.

Kurt identifies the need that hotels might have for mission-based private bikeshare.“The underlying idea is the same: someone arrives at your facility, your city, your hotel and they need transportation. In a lot of cases we don’t want someone to bring their own car… It makes perfect sense for the place you’re staying to provide you with bikeshare – a fleet of bikes designed for certain trip types.”

There is also a security component to bikeshare programs. “There are lots of reasons why you’ve seen more and more cops on bikes. They can get to things faster, they’re closer to the ground. For one thing, they can hear.” These benefits are not confined to private corporations, they can be advantageous to municipalities and state agencies as well.

A loaner fleet is a system in which a facility manages a fleet of bikes that can be checked out on an individual basis.

“Dude, where’s my bike?”

“Using your smartphone you can check this bike out, from wherever you find it. I check out the bike, I ride it away, and I leave it somewhere else, not at a dock, but just locked properly inside the service area.” This is what Kurt introduces as the next generation of bikeshare technology. It exists in Phoenix, Arizona. The entire configuration attached to each individual bike allows the user to check out a single bike from any location.

In the lock 8 system, the locks report to GPS, allowing the whole system to run on one bike. “The key difference here of course, is you can use any kind of bike. Picture citybike where we started: this big heavy thing, all the bikes look the same. Suddenly, the bikes don’t look the same and I can have different kinds of bikes.”

”Last, but not least: pilots are cool,” Kurt concludes. “You start with whatever you need, prove the case, and then expand on it really simply.”

Bikeshare systems offer seamless multi-modal solutions to many contemporary Transportation Demand Management challenges.

RideAmigos offers the perfect platform to promote multi-modal collaboration with bikeshare systems. Together, they pave the way for less congestion, less pollution, and a happier commute.

Building Modeify: Open Source TDM Technology in Arlington and Beyond

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Kevin Webb is a co-founder at Conveyal, a consultancy that develops open source technology for transit agencies. Conveyal offers its services to governments, transport providers, and non-governmental organizations with the ultimate goal of encouraging sustainable transport modes and promoting smarter use of information tools to improve transport outcomes.

OpenTripPlanner

Kevin’s team at conveyal is using their OpenTripPlanner project to further develop open source technology. Spearheaded by TriMet in Portland, Oregon, OpenTripPlanner is an open source platform that helps show how information technology tools fit into the rider communications space. TriMet “ultimately wanted to do more in terms of multimodal planning than Google and the existing status quo was allowing them, so they took on the idea of actually building their own open source multimodal journey planner.” OpenTripPlanner “came out of the idea of building an open source platform that everybody could share and collaborate the creation of” which Kevin states, “is driving the community of software developers around the world.”

Open Source TDM Tools in Arlington: CarFreeAtoZ

Arlington contacted Conveyal, wanting to discuss TDM applications and to adapt the open source technologies that were being used in traditional rider communications by transit agencies to fit into their own TDM space. Conveyal helped them to build the CarFreeAtoZ platform “as an open source extension that sits on top of OpenTripPlanner.”

“One of the cool open source packages that came out of this project was the transport visualization map that draws the schematic transit maps and layers that on top. That’s something we’ve always wanted to see.” The application takes the data from a home location and a work location and provides all the different routes to get between destinations. The platform provides the user with alternative modes of travel that include walking, biking, and carpool options. Multimodal layers are important to the city of Arlington; “Having access to an open source platform, they’ve been able to say ‘we really think bikeshare is one of the things we want to be showing prominently as an option and how that compares against other options,’ and the tool can be adapted to support that.” The CarFreeAtoZ platform incorporates bikesharing systems, allowing users to view how bike sharing might affect their commute.

 

One of the policy goals that was presented to Kevin was to, “help people look at different tradeoffs. In this case they’re very interested in the different kinds of variables people consider as they make transit choices. One of those is cost, but there are also different ways of thinking about time in terms of the time spent traveling and the time spent in a productive use of your time. If you’re able to read or work if you’re commuting on transit for example, as well as health goals.” The ability to compare the costs and benefits allows commuters to determine the optimal commute based on a number of different metrics.

RideAmigos and Conveyal share the same goals of making TDM platforms more accessible, intelligible, and open.

 

Show me the Money! Obtaining Grants, Paid Membership, and Other Funding Strategies.

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Virtual TDM Conference – Kent Epperson from RideAmigos on Vimeo.

Kent Epperson is the Director of Traffic Solutions, a division of the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments. Traffic Solutions is a rideshare organization that encourages alternatives to driving alone. It’s goal is to reduce traffic congestion, air pollution and vehicle miles driven as well as to improve the quality of life for employees, visitors, and residents of Santa Barbara County. Traffic Solutions recently adopted SmartRide, a new commuter web platform with the help of RideAmigos. Kent analogizes his personal experiences with scrambling to pull together funding for the program to Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire. In the movie, sports agent Jerry Maguire has an epiphany that he isn’t living up to his morals, gets fired from his job, and starts his own agency. He encounters many of the same obstacles that TDM organizations face, but overcomes them with the help of his mentor Dicky Fox’s tips.

Dicky Fox’s Guide to Success:

    1. Leave no stone unturned.
    2. You’ve got to love what you sell.
    3. Just make the call, fear and procrastination is not your friend.
    4. Get out of your scarcity mentality.
      1. local sales tax
      2.  construction mitigation
      3.  state, local, and federal transit funding
      4.  planning grants
      5. ITS funding
      6. CMAQ
      7.  earmark funds
      8. corporate sponsors
      9. general funds
      10. 511
      11. cap and trade
      12. active transportation
      13. health and wellness (which is relatively unturned)
      14. employer fees
    5. Don’t sell yourself short.
    6. The key to business is personal relationships.
    7. You don’t have to go it alone.
    8. Create partnerships
    9. Improve programs
    10. Ask for help

Kent notes that “Upgrading to the new platform, there were some great opportunities and as we did that, there were more tools available. We invited employers to be part of the process and we were able to tailor the system to meet their needs.” Kent highlights the benefits that he experienced from step 5, to not sell yourself short. Because Kent did not sell himself short, he was able to incur the multitude of advantages that the RideAmigos platform offers.

“Remember: multimodal is your friend.”

Switching Gears. Adapting UNITY From Your Previous Digital Program Expectations.

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Virtual TDM Conference – Aubrey Iwaniw from RideAmigos on Vimeo.

Aubrey Iwaniw has been involved in transportation planning for ten years, focusing on policies and programs that encourage alternatives to driving alone. As a Senior Advisor with Metrolinx, Aubrey leads the Smart Commute program that helps her manage 13 TMAs. Metrolinx is producing measurable results by encouraging transportation behaviour change of their 720,000 commuters connected to the Smart Commute program.

The Smart Commute Program has services that extend to:
13 Smart Commute offices in the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area.
340 employers
720,000 employees and post-secondary students

RideAmigos has helped Metrolinx to develop its Smart Commute program, which uses social media platforms to track and match applications and digital communication campaigns. Its users are then informed of their alternative transportation options. What Aubrey calls her “cheat sheet” will provide relevant information to users/employers that are adapting to the UNITY platform from their previous digital program expectations.

[gview height=”810px”  file=”http://rideamigos.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/TDM-Transfer-4.pdf”]

The Importance of Sharing Best Practices & Collaboration to Advance Sustainable Mobility

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Virtual TDM Conference – Susan Shaheen from RideAmigos on Vimeo.

“What solutions do we have at our fingertips to address many of the issues that face us today, with respect to climate change, accessibility, reliance on fossil fuels, and our land use patterns?” asks Susan Shaheen, Co-Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC) at UC Berkeley. TSRC is an organization that studies the ways in which sustainable transportation can be made to be most efficient economically, socially, and environmentally. It is focusing on three strategies to lessen greenhouse gas emissions in ordinance with California’s greenhouse gas legislation AB32; they include transportation and land use strategies, technological solutions, and using fuels that leave a smaller carbon footprint.

These approaches, Susan explains, are “changing perceptions across the United States and the World.” She identifies mobility as a fundamental right, just as people are starting to realize that “access trumps possession,” as Kevin Kelly, former editor/publisher of Whole Earth Review, predicted in 2009. Local governments are recognizing this and have started to incorporate shared mobility into public rights of way. These efforts are being made with street parking, provisions for off street parking, waiting zones, and free or reduced cost parking. However, “in order for mobility to be accessible to all, the public and private sector need to work together to ensure all people have access to shared mobility options regardless of income, race or ability,” says Susan.

Susan addresses how the current narrative of changing perspectives on transportation will have a significant effect on transportation demand management. Susan also explains the potential that mobility services shared between users can have. The focus on sustainability and the growth of smart cities highlights the changing business models that will business and government will adopt in the coming decades. As the way we do business and the way we commute to work are constantly changing and consistently influencing the economy, corporations and governments will have to continually account for these changes.

By organizing the Virtual TDM Conference, RideAmigos has taken the initiative to “grow collaboration,” which Susan identifies as the way to success for sustainable transportation.