Building a shared mobility culture and campaign

Summary

The first dockless e-bike sharing system in Greece, and a newly introduced e-scooter sharing system are available in the wider area of the Municipality for locals and visitors, helping to promote a modal shift towards sustainable modes of transport.

Implementing sustainable mobility

Rethymno launches new shared e-mobility solutions. The existing public bike sharing system is being replaced by an innovative dockless e-bike sharing system, as a result of successful collaboration of public and private sector.

Within the same scope, a new free-floating e-scooter sharing system is installed. Rethymno is also promoting a shared mobility culture through behavioural change tools based on research-defined clusters and mobile apps.

The main objectives of the measure are to:

• optimise the sharing mobility services and related infrastructure.
• increase cycling levels by increasing the number of bikes available for sharing.
• increase the number of people using sustainable mobility modes.
• reduce the number of journeys made by single occupancy vehicles.

The main planned actions are:

• Study on mobility sharing best practices, recommendations on bike, taxi and car sharing scheme designs adapted to the local situation/culture.
• Improvement and expansion of the bike sharing system, including e-bikes.
• Study for the launch and operation of a web-based sharing mobility platform.
• Promotional campaign to enable behavioural change towards a shared mobility culture and the sharing platform use.
• Collaboration with taxi drivers to assess a potential shared service framework.
• User satisfaction survey to improve/evaluate the sharing vehicle services.

Progress

The activities implemented so far are:

• Study on potential improvements to the existing bike sharing system and alternative solutions for expansion; workshops with key stakeholders and interested private operators.
• Establishing cooperation with private operators; operation of large-scale dockless sharing system of 300 e-bikes and e-scooters available in wider area of Rethymno.
• Public consultation workshop and participatory events to raise awareness and engage residents and tourists in sharing mobility.
• Free lessons for safe scooter rides.
• Design requirements and functionalities of a customized web-based sharing mobility platform and a car sharing mobile phone application based on existing car-sharing platforms research.
• Promotional campaign in cooperation with the private operator, press releases and interviews. Promotional material for the city’s sharing systems, distributed to hotels, touristic kiosk, hotspots.

Outcomes

The expected outcomes of the measure are:

• Upgraded bike sharing system with upgraded payment methods.
• 300 e-bikes available in the wider area and one e-bike for people with disabilities.
• Large-scale campaign (including social media) to promote sharing mobility modes.
• One web-based bike sharing mobile phone application demonstrated.
• Study for the pilot operation of a web-based car/taxi sharing platform.