Mobility - Stadtrad tests pop-up station at the stadium for the European Championships
The Hamburg City Bike fleet is currently being modernized - and the new bikes allow the train operator to explore new paths. For the first time at the Volksparkstadion during the EM, a Pop-Up-Station was set up, which was only supposed to be there temporarily, as a spokesperson for the train stated. This allowed fans from the city to directly get to the stadium or return from there. Advertising for cycling to the games was made in German and English all over Hamburg. The city bikes were well received by fans, according to a spokesperson.
New bikes open up new possibilities
Pop-Up-Stations are made possible by the new bikes, which function without a chain lock, and which had to be attached to special poles at the station in the past. These poles no longer need to be set up. From obtaining permission to the start of the station, therefore, significantly less time is required. "This allows us to set up and take down stations more quickly," said a spokesperson for the German Press Agency. At Volksparkstadion, a temporary station was also combined with a parking area for e-scooters for the EM. Prospectively, e-scooter parking areas and city bike stations are intended to be thought of more closely, said the spokesperson.
The city bikes of the train have to compete with the small electric kick scooters that can be found everywhere or that sometimes lie on the sidewalks to the annoyance of pedestrians. They are not tied to fixed stations.
City bike has to fight
Although more and more people are registering for the bike-sharing system in the Hanseatic City - but the number of rentals showed a declining trend in the first few months of this year, as emerged from the Senate's answer to a written question from the CDU parliamentary group. A total of 402,461 rentals of the red bikes were registered in the first four months of this year. From the beginning of January to the end of April 2023, it was 422,810 rentals. This represents a decrease of 4.8 percent.
Therefore, the train is relying on the new bikes and new ways. "Since the start of modernization, bike usage has developed very positively. On average, the number of rides increased by more than ten percent - and that despite the weather phenomena in April," explained the spokesperson. A bike with new lock technology is borrowed three times as often as an old one.
The E-Scooter parking area at Volksparkstadion was a temporary addition for the EM, but future plans involve closer integration of e-scooter parking areas and city bike stations. Despite the rise in registrations for Hamburg City Bike, the number of rentals showed a declining trend in the first few months of the year. To combat this, the train operator is focusing on the new features of their modernized bikes, such as the new lock technology, which has led to a significant increase in usage.
