EUROPEAN CYCLING CHALLENGE 2012

The first edition of European Cycling Challenge was held in May 2012. Seven European Cities (including Barcellona e Tallinn) challenged each other on cycling the highest number of kms for urban trips.

In Estonia (Tallinn), Italy (Bologna and San Lazzaro di Savena), Spain (Barcellona), United Kingdom (Reading), Romania (Iasi) and Greece (Saronikos) 715 people have cycled 90.000 km (more than two times around the Earth on the equator), saving 20 tons of CO2.

Any trip has been recorded via GPS, through cyclists smartphones and the Endomondo web platform, which allowed real-time data sharing.

The competition among cyclists has led them to give the best of themselves.

The Challenge gave the opportunity to demonstrate that mobing by bike is a widespread phenomenon, that people do not cycle only on week-ends and that – since more than 50% of urban trips are shorter than 5 kms (Audimob 2011) – bycicle could be an effective way to reduce pollution and congestion. Just think that cycling to work at least once per week leads to a reduction of 20% (one day out of five) of our personal foot-print, going towards European Commission targets.

The challenge has been also an imporant instrument for Local Bodies, indeed mobility behaviours of cyclists are not known as well as for car-drivers, because Cities do not have many data on cycles routes. But now participating Cities have for the first time many detailed data referring to commuting and mobility by bike, which have been processed and displayed by the Heatmaps.

Gallery
Bologna Heatmap
Bologna Heatmap
Tallinn Heatmap
Tallinn Heatmap