Recently the Netherlands experienced a great influx of shared bikes. In the Amsterdam region alone more than ten different companies made their bikes available for rent. A new problem arose: where do you park all these bicycles?
Shared bikes: a challenge for a cycling city
Amsterdam has a shortage in bike parking facilities, so parking them in existing racks was not an option. Parking them outside facilities wasn’t an option either since this led to shared bikes being left at locations that weren’t fit for bike parking (like metro stations). Thus shared bikes became somewhat of a nuisance.
The Vervoerregio Amsterdam (Traffic Region of Amsterdam) decided to ask all companies to remove their bicycles and started the process of selecting one supplier of shared bikes for the region by putting out a tender.
A universal bike sharing pictogram
In the meantime, Mijksenaar focused on the design of identifications for parking facilities created especially for shared bikes. We designed a new pictogram for ‘shared bikes’ that isn’t branded so it can be applied in all situations even if the supplier of shared bikes changes.
Mijksenaar’s design is now available for use by and piloting in all municipalities in the Netherlands.
