An increase in cycling mode share and cycling performance is an essential part of future transport development (Buehler and Pucher 2011; Schwanen 2015). In order to achieve the climate goals of the Federal Republic of Germany, the share of cycling must be significantly increased (BMVI 2021). An important part of this is to make cycling safe also in harsh weather conditions as seen in winter. While cycling mode shares have increased in the other seasons in recent years, a slump in cycling performance can be observed especially in winter (Nobis 2019). Studies to date have attributed this to weather conditions (temperature, precipitation) (Winters et al. 2011) and, above all, to the declining subjective feeling of safety among cyclists. Many German municipalities are therefore working on a winter service concept for cycling in order to mak.e cycling safe even in winter conditions. ... Therefore, an environmentally sound alternative for winter maintenance on segregated cycle paths that is acceptable to cyclists must be found. In many German cities but also globally, the challenge is to find a balanced solution between environmental protection and safe cycling. However, possible alternatives have to go through an approval process before they can be used. To solve those questions, we conducted several surveys which are summarized in this paper. lt consists of five sections: Section 2 highlights the wishes and demands on cycling(infrastructure) in winter from the cyclists' point of view. In section 3, the current state of winter maintenance in German cities is reviewed. Section 4 describes the selection and ecological footprint of alternative gritting materials, while section 5 describes the experiences of users in a field test. [From: Introduction]

Pollution of air represents the contamination with matter that can affect both humanhealth and the environment. Road dust has been recognized as a dominant source ofparticulate matter and one of the factors that contributes to its development is the useof gritting sand. Gritting sand is being used during snowy winter conditions as atraction control method. During spring season, when snow and ice melt and surfacesdry out, and the influence of traffic, asphalt surface wear, particle ejection from tires,etc; under the effect of their interaction, cause the formation of particulate matter.A general aim of this study was to perform analysis of factors which can be consideredresponsible generating road pollution, with resistance to abrasion of gritting sandbeing a potential key problem. The correlation between the use of studded tires andparticulate matter formation has been considered to be one of major issues in urbanareas.In order to carry out this investigation, an individual study case was considered,measurements indicated that levels of pollution increased even after studded tires werebanned.The literature review revealed important knowledge gaps regarding the quantificationof particulate emissions from non-exhaust sources, most importantly, emissions due tolow quality gritting sanding. At this point, very little information is available thatcould be used for determining the resistance to abrasion of gritting sanding material.This is further supported by numerous institutions and companies, all suggesting thatquality of gritting sand is not taken into consideration. Gritting sand is part of abigger problem which also involves types of pavement, types of tires, weather,background pollution, etc. Furthermore, there is no practical method to characterizewear of resistance of gritting sand.