1. NEWSLETTER. JULY2011
Bicycle Account creates better bicycle conditions
The City of Copenhagen has just published its Bicycle Account 2010, which shows the advances in cycle traffic in the
Danish capital – and where there is room for improvement.
PAGE 02
Cycle City 2.0
The Danish cycle cities are continuously working to brand themselves. Just recently, Odense has started a comprehen-
sive process. This has involved a change of name, a payoff, and a whole new visual identity.
PAGE 03
GPS-tech makes cycling fun!
Kids are increasingly being transported on the back of their parents’ car instead of riding a bike. Many Danish munici-
palities wish to change this development. One way is to combine new technology with an old story!
PAGE 04
X-tra bikes on the S-train
The first S-trains with double space for bikes are now up and running. S-train has introduced one-way traffic in the new
bike compartments to make it easier and faster to get on and off.
PAGE 05
CYCLING EMBASSY OF DENMARK
SECRETARIAT: DANISH CYCLISTS’ FEDERATION, ROEMERSGADE 5, DK-1562 COPENHAGEN K, DENMARK
WWW.CYCLING-EMBASSY.ORG / INFO@CYCLING-EMBASSY.ORG

2. Bicycle Account creates better bicycle
conditions
The City of Copenhagen has just published its Bicycle
Account 2010, which shows the advances in cycle traffic
in the Danish capital – and where there is room for
improvement.
By Steffen Nørregaard Rasmussen, Danish Cyclists’ Federa-
tion
“The citizens of Copenhagen and other interested parties can
see what we are doing, and the politicians can monitor if the
declared goals have been reached or if they are reachable.
Furthermore, the bicycle account makes it easy for us to pass
on information in-house between our different departments,”
he says.
Since 1996, every other year the City of Copenhagen has
issued a bicycle account that, in dry figures, analyses the
development of the city’s cycle traffic. The account is made
by collecting different pieces of information about the condi-
tions for cyclists in Copenhagen. In addition, it focuses on the
number of accidents, economic and environmental gains,
sense of safety, and new initiatives.
Get started!
Copenhagen was the first city to make an actual bicycle
account, but gradually more Danish cities have followed suit.
And according to Ulrik, there is nothing to do but start if you
want to make a bicycle account in your own city:
“Just get started. The first one doesn’t have to be big and
Greater sense of safety triggers more cyclists fancy. What is important is to get started on the process,
More than 1000 of the capital’s cyclists have participated in which is first of all the collection of data. When that is up and
the analysis answering questions on their level of satisfaction running, making the bicycle account becomes much easier
on a number of areas. One of the goals of the City of Copen- and more natural,” he says.
hagen is for 80% of all cyclists to feel safe. In 2008, this
number was only 51%, but the latest bicycle account shows You can read the City of Copenhagen’s Bicycle Account 2010
that now 67% feel safe on the cycle tracks. Moreover, never here: www.bit.ly/jgi3m4
before have cycling Copenhageners covered more kilometres
per day. In 2008, Copenhageners cycled 1,17 million kilome- Photos: Troels Heien / Monoline
tres per day, while in 2010, they covered 1,21 million kilome-
tres per day, which is a daily increase of 40.000 kilometres.
These are just some of the numbers you can find in the
Bicycle Account, and according to Ulrik Djupdræt, Traffic
Planner in the City of Copenhagen and co-author of the
Bicycle Account, the account helps make the city’s work to
promote cycling more transparent and makes it easier to
estimate where extra effort is needed.
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3. Cycle City 2.0
The Danish cycle cities are continuously working to brand Step 1: the visual identity
themselves. Just recently, Odense has started a compre- A flexible and vivid visual identity is crucial for a successful
hensive process. This has involved a change of name, a branding. So, Odense’s new visual identity contains a number
payoff, and a whole new visual identity. of isolated elements: stylized bike parts, a cloud, and a fixed
By Connie Juel Clausen, City of Cyclists - Odense range of colours. The elements and colours can be combined
in numerous ways and can be used in all media from film and
living images to print and web.
It is an identity that is always recognizable – despite the fact
that is has great flexibility. And on top of being very simple in
its expression, it goes well with images from the real-life City
of Cyclists.
Branding that gets you recognized on the street
The purpose of the massive branding is to make people
familiar with the visual identity, so they will recognize it when
it is used in campaigns and other activities later on. So
Odense is facing a long strategic haul. Over the next three
years, this will increase Odense citizens’ awareness of the
city’s many opportunities for cyclists.
More than ten years have passed since Odense created their
former brand, Cycle City Odense. Much water has passed
Cycling isn’t just about traffic and road regulations. It has just under the cycle bridge since then, so it was time to revise the
as much to do with pleasure and lifestyle, and this has brand and re-launch the cycle city, 2.0 – this time under the
changed the way in which the Danish cycle cities brand name, City of Cyclists.
themselves.
The purpose of the massive branding of Danish cycle cities is
very simple: to make more people cycle. Because if a munici-
pality wants to sell itself as a cycle city, it is no longer enough
to invest in kilometre upon kilometre of asphalt, you need to
invest in communication too.
City of Cyclists - Odense
The physical framework for cycling in Odense has been good
for many years. The city was formerly known as, Cycle City
Odense – the city with many cycle tracks and ditto cyclists.
Under the new name, City of Cyclists, Odense has upgraded
its brand both visually and communicatively. The first larger
branding exercise has just been completed – including a film
and massive outdoor marketing – all of which is part of a
larger and more general branding strategy.
In the beginning of June 2011, City of Cyclists launched a
Facebook profile, which received over 1800 “likes” in the first
two weeks.
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4. GPS-tech makes cycling fun!
Kids are increasingly being transported on the back of Mette Olsen, who is class teacher for the winning class in
their parents’ car instead of riding a bike. Many Danish Helsingør in 2011, is very enthusiastic about the campaign
municipalities wish to change this development. One way and believes that the use of GPS-technology has a large part
is to combine new technology with an old story! in motivating the students and getting the support of the
By Marianne Weinreich, VEKSØ & Morten Riisgaard-Dam, parents.
Aros Kommunikation
“We haven’t cycled during school hours, but the students and
their parents could keep track of the results on the class
smartboard during the entire campaign. The students have
cycled together on many trips – especially long trips in the
weekends, so they have also benefitted a lot on a social level.
At the same time, the parents have really supported them by
accompanying them on the long trips,” says the class
teacher, who is herself a born competitor and has encour-
aged the students to continue cycling for Dr. Glob for the
entire campaign.
Student from the winning class uploads her cycled kilometres
to the campaign website.
The cycle campaign ”Around the World in 80 Days” targets
12-13 year-old school students and, to go straight to the
point, the idea is for the students to compete together as a
class to see whether they can ‘cycle’ around the world in 80
days.
The students take turns at cycling with a GPS, which regis-
ters the number of cycled kilometres. Next, they upload their Competition powers up the pedals
results on the campaign website. For every kilometre they The competitive element and the idea that all the participants
cycle, the circumnavigator, Dr. Glob, moves one correspond- are assisting Dr. Glob becomes an engine that keeps the
ing kilometre on his trip around the world on his flying Mond- students motivated for all 80 days. However, the students are
ovelo. On the campaign website, the students can keep track also motivated by cold cash, too: the class that cycles most
of Dr. Glob’s progress and of how far the other classes have kilometres wins money for a class trip so the students can
cycled. The challenge is: Can the classes circumnavigate the celebrate their victory. In addition, they can win smaller
globe in 80 days – or in other words, cycle 40.000 km in 80 amounts during the campaign if their class sends Dr. Glob
days? into the various sprint cities. The student in the class who
contributes with the most kilometres wins the GPS, or the
Every time the students pass one of the sprint cities along the municipality can choose to collect them so they can use them
route, Dr. Glob sends them a postcard with funny stories from in next year’s campaign.
the city he is visiting. This way the students learn about
different places in the world, and the teachers can integrate it Results that rock
in class if they want. The setup of the campaign makes it possible to reach a
group that can be difficult to influence – and to keep their
attention for a longer period of time. So far the campaign has
run in the municipalities of Aarhus and Helsingør. Evaluations
show that 2/3 of the students cycled more during the cam-
paign than usual, and that about 40 % cycled on trips where
they would normally have been in the back of a car.
The results of the campaign have also called forth a market-
ing award on the grounds of the campaign’s outstanding
method and its ability to create results and behavioural
change with the target group. The assessment also high-
lighted the use of the GPS devices as a central and motivat-
ing tool.
See more at www.80dage.dk/helsingor or contact Marianne
Weinreich at maw@vekso.com or Morten Riis-Damgaard at
En route to Beijing. The campaign website makes it easier to mrdam@aroskommunikation.dk for further information.
keep track of the class position in the competition.
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5. X-tra bikes on the S-train
The first S-trains with double space for bikes are now up middle of the train, but which are not used much.
and running. S-train has introduced one-way traffic in the Passengers bringing baby carriages on the S-train have the
new bike compartments to make it easier and faster to possibility of being in the passageway as well, while bikes are
get on and off. only allowed in the bike compartments.
By Helene Gram
For more information on bikes and the S-train please go to:
http://www.dsb.dk/s-tog/kampagner/s-tog-og-cykler/
The Copenhageners love to cycle and to take their bikes on
the S-train. In 2010, S-train made it free to bring the bike on
board, which has been a growing success, so now S-train is
remodelling 10 trains, making space for twice as many bikes.
There will be one-way traffic in the new bike compartments,
so you enter at one end and exit at the other.
“In order to make it faster and easier for cyclists to get in and
out of the S-train, we have decided to introduce one-way
traffic. In addition, the new bike compartments have room for
twice as many bikes as usual, and we can spread out the
bikes along the platform because the new bike compart-
ments are located in the middle of the S-train,” says Sales
Director at S-train, Niklas Marschall.
Popular bike/train combo
As the Copenhageners are a most bicycle-friendly lot, S-train
is continuously working to improve the conditions for cyclists
on the S-train. An analysis from April this year shows that a
third of all passengers have taken advantage of the possibility
of bringing their bike on the S-train for free, and 91% are very
positive about the idea whether they take their bike on the In 2010, the number of bikes on the S-train more than
S-train themselves or not. Moreover, it makes even more doubled which meant that almost 5 million cyclists brought
people choose an eco-friendly means of transport if they their bike on board. S-train is currently remodelling 10 trains
combine bike and train. A whole 27% of the cyclists state to make more room for bikes.
that they wouldn’t have taken the S-train if they couldn’t bring Photos: Klaus Holsting
their bike for free.
“We want to help make Copenhagen the world’s best city for
cyclists and create even better conditions for cyclists. At the
moment we are putting up bicycle pumps at a number of
stations, making bicycle ramps, more bicycle parking facili-
ties, and now also twice as much room for bikes on the
S-trains,” says Niklas.
Bike compartments in the middle
The new bike compartments are located in the middle of the
train. This takes the pressure off of the many passengers who
prefer to use the doors at the ends of the train. The remod-
elled trains have pronounced coloured stripes on the sides of
the train leading the way to the bike compartments.
In connection with the introduction of the remodelled trains,
S-train is also making an extra effort to draw attention to the
existing bike compartments that are already located in the 5