Skip to main content

European bike sharing market fuelled by innovations and government support

New research by Frost & Sullivan, European Bike Sharing Market, Forecast to 2025, indicates that the bike sharing fleet will more than double in size from 151,302 units in 2016 to 341,250 units in 2025. Southern and Western Europe have high public bike sharing service (BSS) activity. About 196 cities in Southern Europe have more than 35,000 rental bikes; in Western Europe, 150 cities have nearly 70,000 rental bikes. Spain and France are the strongest markets, but the UK, Germany and Italy are expanding quic
February 7, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
New research by 2097 Frost & Sullivan, European Bike Sharing Market, Forecast to 2025, indicates that the bike sharing fleet will more than double in size from 151,302 units in 2016 to 341,250 units in 2025. Southern and Western Europe have high public bike sharing service (BSS) activity. About 196 cities in Southern Europe have more than 35,000 rental bikes; in Western Europe, 150 cities have nearly 70,000 rental bikes. Spain and France are the strongest markets, but the UK, Germany and Italy are expanding quickly.

As densely populated urban centres all over the world grapple with issues of rising fuel consumption and carbon emissions, green mobility solutions such as public bike sharing service (BSS) are rising to prominence. This shift away from personal cars towards sustainable mobility solutions is bolstered by the high parking fees, volatile fuel costs and growing congestion in busy urban areas.

Although BSS enjoys escalating demand, high insurance costs could prove a deterrent to its wide-scale adoption. Furthermore, safety guidelines of bike sharing programmes are often not aligned with those mandated by insurance schemes, necessitating deeper analysis and resolution of the insurance issue.

“Urban commuters are considering multiple mobility options to optimise travel time and convenience for short distance travel of less than five kilometres,” said Frost & Sullivan mobility research analyst Debanjali Sen. “Consumer interest has prompted several BSS operators to explore integration of bike sharing with public transit and other modes of shared transport such as car sharing/ride sharing on a unified digital platform for ease of payment and bookings.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Call for truck tolls on Austria’s rural highways
    April 18, 2012
    The Austrian Traffic Club (VCÖ) which is the principal organisation in the country working for environmentally sustainable, socially just, and economically efficient mobility, has called for the introduction of truck tolls for rural highways. The organisation says that trucks wear down roads 35,000 times more than cars and also claims that in 2010 truck transport caused road infrastructure-related costs of US$4.78 billion but it paid only $3.46 via tolls and taxes.
  • Europe to lead insurance telematics market
    June 14, 2012
    The number of insurance telematics users in Europe will grow from 1.5 million in 2010 to 44 million in 2017, initially driven by the UK and Italy, according to ABI Research. Despite aggressive efforts from Progressive, North America will continue to lag behind the European UBI market, it says. Vice president and practice director Dominique Bonte comments, “While insurance telematics or usage based insurance (UBI) is far from a recent phenomenon, renewed interest in this market has been observed from both es
  • Smart transportation market worth US$102.31 billion by 2018
    December 12, 2012
    According to a new market research report, published by US-headquartered global market research and consulting company MarketsandMarkets, the smart transportation market expected to reach more than $102.31 billion by 2018, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.6 per cent. The report, Smart Transportation Market - by Solutions (Ticketing Management, Parking Management, Passenger Information, Traffic Management), Services (Traditional, Advanced, Software) Worldwide Analysis and Forecasts (2012 - 2018)
  • NXP maintains pole position within the ticketing market
    August 14, 2012
    Despite competition clearly increasing within the contactless ticketing market, NXP maintains a dominant foothold, through its line of MiFare solutions, according to ABI Research which says the company achieved a combined market share in excess of 70 per cent for 2011 smart card and RFID ticketing IC shipments. The OSPT continues its quest in penetrating the market with CiPurse product and has certainly had a successful 2012, completing pilots and trials worldwide, leading to two on-going commercial deploym