Date of label : 29/10/2024
People gathered for the project "AU BOULOT À VÉLO!" which translates from French to "To work by bike!"
Summary
The success of the Bike to work / Au boulot à vélo challenge project in Eurometropolis of Strasbourg (FR) is due to a mixture of factors:
- Local cycling policy, which is based on infrastructure + vehicles + services.
- Project leadership by an active local NGO, in everyday contact with the cycling community and companies.
- A big annual communication campaign every May to motivate new members to try the month-long Bike to work challenge starting on 1 June.
- One person in each company acts as a ‘contact point’, who is reposnsible for registering the company in the challenge, and sharing all the information to their colleagues.
- It is a bike challenge, no other means of transport allowed!
- Many events during the month of the challenge, to motivate the troops and bring in the fun!
The solutions offered by the Good Practice
The Bike to work challenge started with 10 companies and 50 people participating in 2009. Now it attracts 870 companies and 17 000 people every year.
Most importantly, more then 2 000 participants (almost every year) have never cycled to work before. The project’s challenge is to show them that it is possible and fun, and to encourage them to regularly cycle to work after the challenge.
A recent improvement is the mobile app, which will need to be brought up to date next year, so that the data can be used for future planning of bicycle infrastructure.
All the activities around the challenge can be found on the Au boulot à vélo website.
Building on the sustainable and integrated urban approach
Commuting to work by bicycle is the best answer to the big urban challenge of sustainable mobility. It does not pollute the environment, or create noise problems. It's affordable for almost every citizen, and during the challenge 52% of usual participants are women (when data tell us that at the EU level men are riding bicycles more then women). Bike to work highlights all the benefits of this integrated approach to tackling this urban challenge.
Based on participatory approach
Since it started in 2009, the Bike to work challenge has been co-organised by the metropolitan administration and a local NGO.
What difference has it made?
The impact is visible everywhere in the city. For the whole month of June, the metropolitan administration’s communication is focused around the bicycle, to encourage more cyclists to use the bike lanes. Local companies use the challenge as a team-building activity, and every year there are more participants. In 2023, 860 companies and 17 000 people participanted.
Why this Good Practice should be transferred to other cities
The Bike to work challenge is an exemplary way to promote cycling, and the numbers that take part, and the positive stories they tell, are proof of its success. The organisers ensure that the event is fun, so thousand of people want to participate, and in the end it's a win-win situation. Companies use it as a free team-building event, and the municipality is getting more citizens going to work by bike instead by car.
Bike to work supports the UN Sustainable Developemnt Goals (SDGs), specifically SDG 3 (Good health & wellbeing), SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities), SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities), and SDG 13 (Climate action).
As well as local companies, a hundred cities/companies from outside the territory of the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg get a chance every year to participates in the challenge.
The practice can be replicated in any city in Europe, no matter its size. Key to a successful transfer will be the commitment of a city administartion and a local NGO to implement the challenge to a high standard.