This paper reports on a review of the European literature about the impacts of having an electrically-assisted bike available to use, together with results from a trial in the UK city of Brighton, where 80 employees were loaned an electrically-assisted bike for a 6–8 week period. In the Brighton trial, three-quarters of those who were loaned an e-bike used them at least once a week. Across the sample as a whole, average usage was in the order of 15–20 miles per week, and was accompanied by an overall reduction in car mileage of 20%. At the end of the trial, 38% participants expected to cycle more in the future, and at least 70% said that they would like to have an e-bike available for use in the future, and would cycle more if this was the case. This is consistent with the results of the European literature which shows that when e-bikes are made available, they get used; that a proportion of e-bike trips typically substitutes for car use; and that many people who take part in trials become interested in future e-bike use, or cycling more generally.

This study examines the impact and potential of cargo bikes as socio-economically and ecologically beneficial modes of transportation. It focuses on the perspectives of cargo bike pool members and the challenges faced by pool operators. Three interviews were conducted with cargo bike pool operators in Sweden to understand the challenges and considerations involved in establishing and operating a pooling service, as well as their opinions on its financial future. Additionally, a user survey targeting pool members from one of the interviewed operators was conducted in 2020. The survey investigated user barriers, motivations, opinions towards the pooling service, and its effect on user mobility habits before and after joining. Although the acceptance and utilization of these services depend on factors such as proximity, pricing, availability, quality, and convenience of the service. The findings show that pooling services increase member interest in owning and using cargo bikes as a replacement for cars. However, concerns regarding the marketability of cargo-bike pools alone are raised in this study, thus, to enhance the attractiveness of cargo-bike pools, this study suggests incorporating additional modes of transportation, offering supplementary value propositions, and ensuring a user-friendly experience. On the operator side, this study highlights the importance of stakeholder collaboration in maximizing the potential of cargo bike pools for sustainable transportation enabling resource sharing, and marketing efforts, and improving the overall service by leveraging financial, spatial, and logistical benefits. Finally, this study finds that the current state of cargo bike pools necessitates collaboration and subsidies from municipalities and stakeholders. Suggesting innovations in business models and increased marketing strategies that capture a broader demographic through an enhanced value proposition that includes other forms of modality and benefits in their services, are vital for the growth of cargo biking through pooling systems.  The research provides insights for prospective operators in establishing and operating cargo bike pools, emphasizing considerations related to the physical layout, financial aspects, marketing, and value proposition of the service and has broader implications in how to encourage more sustainable mobility practices.

Mountain biking is a sport where riders bike on trails, varying in slope and difficulty. Mountain bikes are generally equipped with suspension on the front wheel and often also on the rear. Some types of rear shocks use pressurized air for a spring action instead of the traditional metal coil. Air is sealed inside the shock’s air can by means of X-ring seals, providing a spring force on the wheel. It is of great importance that the sealing system performs as intended so the air spring does not quickly lose pressure during use. An experimental plan is conducted in an attempt to estimate the effects of seal dimension, lubrication and surface roughness on air leakage for more robust shocks. Accelerated tests were performed in a dynamometer, believed to repeatedly cause significant wear on the shock’s air seal within 24 hours. Nineteen tests were carried out, for a duration up to 72 hours, with variations to test parameters such as stroke length and frequency. The expected failure modes did not occur in any of them. Eleven tests showed no signs of failure while the other eight failed due to unexpected components breaking or wearing out. The shock’s main seal was found to wear out faster than the air seal, causing leakage within the air spring, between its positive and negative air chambers. This unforeseen failure needs further examination with tests conducted on more shock types. / Mountainbike är en sport där utövare åker på stigar med varierande lutning och svårighet. Terrängcyklar är generellt utrustade med stötdämpare eller fjädrar på framhjulet och ofta också på bakhjulet. Vissa terrängcyklar har stötdämpare bak som använder trycksatt luft för att dämpa istället för att använda traditionella stålfjädrar. Luften är sluten inuti stötdämparen med hjälp av X-rings tätningar, vilket ger en fjäderkraft på hjulet. Det är viktigt att tätningen fungerar så att luftfjädern inte snabbt tappar trycket när den används. En experimentplan skapades i ett försök att uppskatta effekten av tätningsdimension, smörjning och ytjämnhet på luftläckage för mer robusta stötdämpare. Accelererade tester gjordes i en dynamometer, som troddes kunna skapa signifikant slitage på en stötdämpares tätning inom 24 timmar upprepade gånger. 19 test gjordes med en körtid på upp till 72 timmar med variation av testparametrar som slaglängd och frekvens. De förväntade felkällorna uppstod inte i något av testerna. 11 tester visade inga tecken på fel medan 8 tester misslyckades på grund av att oväntade komponenter slets ut eller gick sönder. Stötdämparens huvudtätning visade sig slitas fortare än lufttätningen, vilket resulterade i läckage inuti luftfjädern mellan dess positiva och negativa kammare. Detta oförutsedda fel behöver vidare undersökning med tester på fler olika typer av stötdämpare.

The growing population of cities and the rise of e-commerce are increasing the transportation of both goods and people. This can generate problems such as traffic jams, increased pollution, and lower living standards for citizens. To reduce the negative impacts, a change in last mile mobility could be made, replacing traditional combustion vehicles with electric ones or, ideally, with bikes and cargo bikes.  This thesis examines the case of the Swedish cities of Gävle and Uppsala, trying to explain how the last mile affects the lives of their inhabitants, if and why electric vehicles and cargo bikes are implemented (or not), and how authorities can promote their use. For this purpose, after a literature review, some questions were developed, and seven city managers were interviewed: five from Gävle and two from Uppsala.  The study shows that city managers are aware of the impacts that the last mile, and mobility in general, has on its inhabitants, and of the need for a shift towards a more sustainable mobility. Despite this awareness, policy makers are not doing everything possible to accelerate the transition. According to city managers, both the public and private sector advocate more for a change of energy source (from combustion to electric vehicles) rather than a model change using bikes. In addition, the study shows the opportunities that the new model based on non-traditional vehicles can offer and the barriers that prevent its implementation. Finally, different measures that could make cities more sustainable are proposed.

Through over forty-five years of development, bike sharing is not a fangle in Europe. But it becomes a popular topic in China in recent two years. The Chinese startups exert IoT technologies and GPS modular in shared bikes and launched the world’s first station-less bike sharing system. This new bike sharing system gains in popularity and develops dramatically all across China. In addition, the leading bike sharing service providers such as Mobike, got over $300 million investment since the start of 2017, which caught the attention of the public. More and more venture capitalists want to touch this new tempting pie. This paper mainly focuses on investigating what are the roles of this new bike sharing system in urban mobility in China especially in Shanghai and its influences in the society. Meanwhile, the socio-technological innovations of the new bike sharing are explored together with the application of different theoretical frameworks, such as Porter’s Five Forces and system thinking. This paper also tempted to fill up the gap in the literature that describing the missing part of smart bike sharing business - using the station less bike sharing business model, involving a discussion of its pros and cons. In order to give more detailed insights about the new bike sharing industry, we choose the world’s first station-less bike sharing service company - Mobike, as our case study object to investigate the revolutionary bike sharing system in Chinese major cities, specifically in Shanghai - the representative megacity of China. Conclusions and future development suggestions are provided at the end of this paper so that the stakeholders could have some references for further development of bike sharing industry.

When striving to develop towards sustainability, reducing private car use is a crucial factor. The most convenient alternative is to replace the private car with public transport. Fast public transport types, such as trains, have large catchment areas, thus walking to the station can be time consuming and increases door-to-door travel time compared with the private car. An alternative to this is bike-and-ride, i.e. cycling to the transit station and continuing with public transport. This study aims to find ways to increase public transport use, focusing on cycling between the home and the transit station. This is done through a literature study and a case study in Knivsta, a suburban area of Stockholm connected to the city center through commuter trains. Improvements in the current bike-and-ride infrastructure in Knivsta are suggested, using the principles of Transit Oriented Development and Theory of Planned Behavior as guidelines. The most important aspects of high bike-and-ride proportions is the provision of separate bicycle paths and plentiful high-quality bicycle parking at transit stations. The current situation in Knivsta is inadequate with few separate bicycle paths and the bicycle parking does not fulfil recommendations. Suggestions for improvements are proposed, with developing a regional bicycle highway network in addition to other bicycle paths throughout the town of Knivsta, in addition to increased and improved bicycle parking at Knivsta train station to fulfil the requirements of the future as Knivsta is expected to double in population towards 2030. The changes proposed to the bicycle infrastructure in Knivsta have potential to increase public transport use, decreasing private car and park-and-ride use. Due to the bicycle network being convenient and accessible for virtually everyone, the municipality will develop towards environmental, economic, and social sustainability.

This thesis acts as one of the first studies that analyzes the safety effects of Edge Lane Roads (ELR) for all road users. This is important since ELRs can be a solution to many issues, such as alleviating congestion, increasing multimodality along roadways, and reducing maintenance costs. ELRs in both North America and Australia were observed. Starting with the North American ELRs, the following study designs were employed to estimate the safety of ELRs: (a) yoked comparison where each ELR installation was matched with at least two comparable 2-lane roads to serve as comparison sites and (b) an Empirical Bayes (EB) before/after analysis for ELR sites where requisite data on AADT and other relevant characteristics were available. Crash data was collected and compiled into four different groups: ELR before implementation, ELR after implementation, comparison site before ELR implementation, and comparison site after ELR comparison. The yoked comparison showed 9 of the 13 sites that had lower crash counts compared to their respective comparison sites. The EB analysis showed all 11 ELRs that were observed demonstrated a reduction in crashes. Moving to the Australian ELRs, the following study designs were employed: (c) analysis of general crash counts/trends, and (d) reverse EB analysis. The analysis of general crash counts and trends showed that each of the Australian ELRs exhibited very low amounts of crashes for 5 years, which further shows how safe these facilities are. Moving forward to the reverse EB analysis, 5 of the 8 ELR sites demonstrated a reduction in crashes. Overall, the results were generally favorable and indicated that ELRs provided a safer experience for cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians. More analysis is recommended as more data becomes available on these ELRs. Examples of this include using pedestrian and bicycle data to better understand the safety effects VRUs experience on North American facilities or gathering enough crash data to conduct 3-year reverse EB analyses for ELRs that were expanded to 2-lane roads. Hence, a recommendation can be made to implement a few experimental ELRs in rural locations throughout the State of California to help it meet its SB-1 objectives.

No description available.

Syftet med denna studie var tvådelat: Första delen handlade om att undersöka deteventuella sambandet mellan olika väderfaktorer och efterfrågan på låneycklar.Målet med studien var att undersöka hur sambandet mellan dessa förklarandevariabler och responsvariabel ser ut. För att undersöka detta användesregressionsanalys där en multipel regressionsmodell byggdes upp baserat påverklig data. Studien utgick ifrån staden Seoul där stadens lånecykel- ochväderdata användes. Det studien kom fram till var att alla väderfaktorer varstatistiskt signifikanta med efterfrågan på lånecyklar och sambandet mellan dessavar exponentiellt. Sambandet var positivt för väderfaktorerna temperatur ochsikt. Samtidigt som de resterande, luftfuktighet, vindhastighet, solstrålning, regnoch snöfall hade ett negativt samband. Fortsättningsvis, blev sambandet starkastför temperatur, fuktighet och regn, samtidigt svagast för vindhastighet, snöfalloch sikt. I den andra delen av studien genomfördes en marknadsanalys för lånecyklar.Även i denna del var staden Seoul i fokus. Inom denna marknadsanalysanalyserades bland annat marknadsituation, konkurrerande tjänster, styrkor ochsvagheter. Slutsatsen av denna analys är att marknaden för lånecyklar är komplexoch innefattar många olika faktorer. Den har även visat att en stad som Seoulhar lyckats med införandet av lånecyklar trots många utmaningar. Slutligen harstudien visat att lånecyklar är en växande marknad som kommer bli ännu meraktuell i framtiden. / The purpose of this study was twofold: The first part was about analyzing possiblecorrelations between various weather factors and the demand for bike-sharing.The aim of the study was to investigate how the relationship between theseexplanatory variables and the response variable looks like. To investigate this,regression analysis was used where a multivariate linear model was built basedon real data. The study was based on the city of Seoul, where the city’s bike-sharing and weather data were used. What the study found was that all weatherfactors were statistically significant with the demand for bike-sharing and therelationship between them was exponential. The relationship was positive forthe weather factors temperature and visibility while the remaining, i.e. weatherfactors, humidity, wind speed, solar radiation, rain and snowfall, had a negativerelationship. The strongest relationship were temperature, humidity and rainwhile the weakest were wind speed, snowfall and visibility. In the second part of the study a market analysis for bike-sharing was carried out.Also in this part, the city of Seoul was in focus. Within this market analysis, amongother things, the market situation, competing services, strengths and weaknessesswere analyzed. The conclusion based on this analysis is that the market for bike-sharing is complex and includes many factors. It has also shown that a city likeSeoul has succeeded in introducing bike-sharing despite many challenges. Finally,the study has shown that bike-sharing is a growing market that will become evenmore relevant in the future.

Despite a steady decrease in fatality rates across European nations,Vulnerable Road User (VRU) continue to face significant risks in traffic incidents. Pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists make up the majority of fatalities. Vision Zero sets a global standard for road safety,and its implementation complements broader European Union (EU)initiatives in prioritizing a zero-tolerance stance on road fatalities.This thesis underscores the transformative potential of VehicularAd hoc Networks (VANETs) by introducing a protocol to enhance roadsafety through intention sharing, particularly for micro-mobility vehicles such as E-bikes and E-scooters. By integrating this protocolwith Vehicle-to-Anything (V2X) technology, this thesis aims to redefine VRUs’ role in traffic safety from passive to active participants. Theprotocol aims to complement the quality of information and improving energy efficiency while maintaining safety metrics for cooperativetransportation systems. We achieved this by transmitting a reservedarea where the rider intends to be in the near future.Results from simulations demonstrate the efficacy of intention sharing in improving message reliability and efficiency compared to intention detection methods.While preliminary results show promise, further research is necessary to validate real-world applicability fully. Nonetheless, this thesiscontributes to the ongoing efforts to achieve Vision Zero by harnessing technological innovations to protect VRUs and create safer roadenvironments. / Trots en minskning av antalet dödsolyckor i europeiska länder fortsätter oskyddade trafikanter (VRU:er) att möta risker i trafiken. Fotgängare, cyklister och motorcyklister utgör majoriteten av dödsfall. Nollvisionen sätter en global standard för trafiksäkerhet, och dess implementering kompletterar bredare EU-initiativ som prioriterar nolltolerans mot dödsfall i trafiken. Denna avhandling understryker den transformativa potentialen hos Fordons ad-hoc-nätverk (VANETs) genom att introducera ett protokoll för att förbättra trafiksäkerheten genom delning av avsikter, särskilt för mikromobilitetsfordon såsom elcyklar och elsparkcyklar. Genom att integrera detta protokoll med Fordon till allt (V2X)-teknologi strävar detta arbete mot att omdefiniera VRU:ers roll i trafiksäkerhet från passiva till aktiva deltagare. Protokollet fungerar som så att den skickar meddelanden för VRU:ers intentioner till de andra deltagarna inom nätverket. Dessa meddelanden innehåller de framtida förutsägbara positionerna av VRU:n. Dessa positioner är sedan transformerade till en reserverad ellips där VRU:n kan tänkas befinna sig i framtiden.  Resultat från simuleringar visar effektiviteten i metoder som genom att dela avsikter förbättrar meddelandens pålitlighet och effektivitet i jämförelse med metoder som istället försöker detektera avsikter, vilket banar väg för säkrare transportsystem.  Det visade sig att tillförlitligheten bland meddelanden med intentioner var högre, störst skillnad var inom 100 meter från avsändaren. I denna grupp hade detekteringsmetoden en förlust av meddelanden på ungefär 20%, medans intentionsdelning endast hade en förlust på 5%. Dessutom var meddelandestorleken betydligt mindre, en minsking på 64%. De preliminära resultaten ser lovande ut, men vidare forskning är nödvändig för att fullt utvärdera den verkliga tillämpbarheten. Denna masteruppsats bidrar till den pågående eftersträvan att uppnå nollvisionen genom att utnyttja teknologiska innovationer för att skydda VRU:er genom samarbete och att skapa en säkrare trafikmiljö. Dessa resultat har potential att påverka standardiseringen på europeisk nivå och bana väg för framtidens mobilitet. / Trafikverket Skyltfonden 2023/104170