Cradle of the Automobile Embraces Cycling

The City of Stuttgart has been a car-dominated city for more than 50 years. Dubbed “The Cradle of the Automobile”, it is home to Daimler Benz, Porsche, Maybach, Bosch and Mahle.

“Nobody thought about cyclists for years,” said Claus Kohnlein, Stuttgart's Bicycle Officer in our meeting on Thursday. His department has been working to reduce speed limits and increase the number of bike lanes in this auto friendly city.

The newest part of his bicycle strategy is the Call a Bike Program which is designed to address traffic congestion, improve air quality and increase mobility options. Call a Bike is a Deutsche Bahn program in several of Germany's major cities and Karl-Heinz Erdt, Deutsche Bahn Dispatcher for Call a Bike Stuttgart was also at the meeting.

One of Stuttgart's 65 Bike Stations

Implemented in 2007, Call a Bike has been widely accepted in Stuttgart with 60,000 bike rentals in 2008. There are 65 bike rental station in 10 square kilometers in the Downtown area. The city converted car parking spaces into bike stations, with 6 bicycles in each former car spot.

How it Works Herr Erdt and Herr Kohnlein demonstrated how to use they system and the time it takes to rent a bike is only slightly longer than it would take to unlock a personal bicycle.

1. There is a one-time registration completed online at www.callabike.de or by calling 07000 5 22 55 22. You must provide a credit or debit card number for the rental fees. There is a 5 Euro registration fee that will be used for your first bike rentals.

2. Call the number on the bicycle on your mobile phone and the automated system will provide a code that must be entered into a keypad to release the bike lock. The system will also text your phone with the number so that you may lock and unlock the bike multiple times during the rental.

3. There is a bolt that locks the wheels if you need to lock your bike, but don't want to return it to a station.

4. To return the bike, bring it to any of the 65 stations, lock the bike to the rack and enter the same four digit code.

Who uses Call a Bike?

The largest demographic of Call a Bikers are residents and tourists 18-35 years old because this is the age group most comfortable using mobile phones. Although, using a mobile phone is convenient for many , Herr Kohnlein explained that it was also a drawback for people without cell phones. Stuttgart and Deutsche Bahn are researching the possibility of a kiosk to make the system even more user friendly.

User Cost

The bikes are free for the first hour and then can be rented by the minute, the day or the week. It costs 8 cents a minute to rent or a maximum of 9 Euro each day. Bikes can be rented for a a week for 36 Euro.

Multi-modal transportation is the goal. Trains, Bikes & Car Sharing make a complete system.

Transit Culture

“If you need mobility, we are your partner,” Herr Erdt said. Deutsche Bahn has a corporate mindset of true customer service. I also noticed this attitude at the local transit agency in Duisburg. There is truly a focus on the rider's experience throughout the rider's entire journey. The transit agencies we have spoken with in Germany value customer goodwill and see it as their duty to provide the best possible user experience.

In the future, Stuttgart would like to combine the bike system with Pedelec bikes because Stuttgart is a very hilly city. There are political, technical and financial obstacles to providing the electric bicycles, but it may be a bike rental option in the future.

Deutsche Bahn provides maintenance and ensures stations have bikes at all times.

Start-Up Costs

The investment and risk of the program is assumed by Deutsche Bahn and it does not profit from the Call a Bike program, but the bikes are excellent advertising and the system encourages people to ride trains because they know they can hop on a bike when they arrive. The City of Stuttgart pays Deutsche Bahn a fee to provide and maintain Call a Bike. Each bike costs 1,000 Euro, each rack costs 300 Euro and the bikes are very well maintained.

Bike Rental in Cleveland

Could a program like this work in Cleveland without an entity such as Deutsche Bahn? Herr Erdt and Herr Kohnlein don't believe this type of bike rental will work without a partnership between the city and a large partner—whether it is a public, private or charitable entity.

I am not sure which organizations could best create a bike sharing program, but I imagine a Call a Bike Station at Cleveland's forthcoming Bike Center, Public Square at the CSU campus and at University Circle to start.