Thursday, September 23, 2010

Switzerland's National Advancement

I had heard of a Spanish effort, either at the regional or national level, to promote bike-sharing that occurred in November 2007. It was a conference solely about bike-sharing. I would have loved to have been there to learn about Spain's advancement of bike-sharing. The country is at or near the top of the list for the sheer number of services it offers, so there's a lot of knowledge individuals there can share.

A new conference was held on September 10 in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland called Koordination Bikesharing Schweiz/Coordination Bikesharing Suisse (Swiss Bike-sharing Coordination). According to their website, the organization's purpose is for "The coordination of bike sharing [to] provide an exchange platform around this new bike phenomenon". Switzerland has 30 bike-sharing services using three systems (nextbike, velopass, and Bieler System) in the central and western part of the country (see p.3 of their newsletter).

For more information, check them out. It's great they're being proactive like this. Others countries, including mine(!), should take note.

p.s. - Here's their agenda and newsletter.

1 comment:

Esther Anaya said...

Hi Paul, We had a second Public Bikes Conference in Spain, last year in Sevilla. You can find more info here: http://www.bicicletapublica.org/inicio.htm check "documentación" for the presentations and other documents.
Next is planned for next year, I'll keep you up to date :)