Italian shared micro-mobility is growing fast!
« La bicicletta somiglia, più che ad ogni altra macchina, all’aeroplano: essa riduce al minimo il contatto con la terra, e soltanto la sua umiltà le impedisce di volare. »
Italy, worldwide known for its culture, its rich gastronomy and its breathtaking landscapes, is also a land of cycling. Often confined to sports, for a few years now the bike has become a permanent fixture in the mobility habits of Italians. And the electric scooter too! Indeed, micro-mobility is constantly growing in Italian cities. As such, the number of micro-mobility systems, including bikes and scooters, is constantly increasing: +25% between 2020 and 2021! This trend is in line with the global growth of micro-mobility, fueled by environmental concerns and changes in the way city dwellers travel towards greener mobility. In this article, Qucit takes a look at the reasons for this growth of shared micro-mobility in Italy.
Source : Gazzetta
What is the bike culture in Italy?
If Italy is often associated with sports cars or small city cars, bikes are becoming more and more important. One of the reasons? The sport! In fact, sport cycling has considerably anchored the bike in Italian society, even going so far as to consider it a symbol of its identity. Cycling is one of the most popular sports in Italy, with a long tradition and rich history. The country has hosted the Giro d'Italia since 1909, which is one of the three biggest cycling races in the world alongside the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España. In addition, Italy has a long tradition of manufacturing high quality bikes, with some of the world's most renowned racing bike brands such as Colnago, Bianchi and Pinarello.
Source: Cycling Archives
Italians are known for their passion for bikes as a leisure activity but also as a means of transportation! In 2011, for the first time since 1964, bike sales exceeded those of cars. This "bicimania" was partly explained by the economic crisis that hit Italian households hard and the exponential increase in fuel prices. A situation which is not without reminding the current context... This craze for the bike, and more widely for the e-scooter, found a second wind during the health crisis of 2020. Indeed, many cities have promoted micro-mobility vehicles to improve urban mobility by reducing the overload of public transport to limit contamination. For example, Milan, the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic in Europe, introduced 35 km of new bike lanes, expanded sidewalks and set a 30 km/h speed limit in the city center to encourage the use of micro-mobility vehicles.
Why is there a boom in micro-mobility in Italy?
According to Il Rapporto Nazionale sulla Sharing Mobility of 2022, in 2021 micro-mobility trips will account for 26 million rentals.
Source: Rapporto Nazionale sulla Sharing Mobility de 2022
The number of shared micro-mobility services was 146 in 2021, which led to another positive aspect: the spread of micro-mobility to southern cities. For the first time since the monitoring of these activities, the number of provincial capitals with at least one shared micro-mobility service (62) is higher than those with no service (46).
Source: Rapporto Nazionale sulla Sharing Mobility de 2022
As such, Milan and Rome are the two cities with the highest supply and demand for micro-mobility services.
Rome, the Italian capital, has recently reorganized its supply of shared e-scooters. In order to better control the use of this means of transport, the municipality decided to lower the speed of the machines from 25 km/h to 20 km/h and to reduce the number of scooter operators from 7 to 3.
The city of Milan has had a bike-sharing service, BikeMi, since 2008. Operated by ClearChannel, these shared bikes are located in 320 stations around the city, allowing users to move around as they please while returning the bikes to the dedicated stations.
Source : In Italia Magazine
A McKinsey study, Why micro-mobility is here to stay, conducted in 2021, shows that this micro-mobility trend is not about to stop. In fact, in Italy, 81% of respondents would be willing to use a micro-mobility vehicle to get to their workplace. This puts the country in second place, just behind China (86%), and shows a clear preference for electric and mechanical bikes. This trend is also reflected in Italy, where 65 self-service bike systems are in operation in 2023!
Source: McKinsey, Why micromobility is here to stay, Dec 2021
The example of Brescia
Brescia is an example of an Italian city that implemented a micro-mobility system very early on. Indeed, since 2008, this city in Lombardy has been offering a shared bike service to its residents. Today, this service has 450 mechanical and electric bikes distributed over 93 stations. And its popularity continues to grow! In 2022, the operator Brescia Mobilità announced a 10% increase in its subscribers, bringing their number to 34,000. 700,000 trips were made with the Bicimia service in 2022.
Source: Bicimia
To cope with this growing popularity, Brescia Mobilità called on Qucit to optimize the system's rebalancing system's rebalancing operations. The question of rebalancing is essential for the management of a micro-mobility system. A system is never perfectly balanced in a natural way. Some areas are primarily departure areas and others are arrival areas. Over time, user behaviors can change, making it necessary to continually re-evaluate these strategies. Qucit helps Brescia Mobilità to increase the usage rate of the bike-share while optimizing the trips to collect and drop off the right number of bikes at the stations.
What are the reasons for the development of micro-mobility in Italy?
The strong development of micro-mobility in Italy can be explained by several factors. First, the environmental awareness of Italians is growing. According to a survey conducted by Ipsos in 2021 for the Franco-Italian Dialogues for Europe, the level of sensitivity regarding the urgency of intervention is higher among Italians (81%) than among the French (72%).
In addition, due to the narrowness of the streets, the increase in pedestrian areas, and traffic congestion, micro-mobility solutions in Italian cities offer a welcome alternative to the car. Finally, the arrival of private fleet operators has enabled many Italian cities to introduce new shared vehicle systems without having to bear the full cost of their investment.
Are there any persistent obstacles to the development of micro-mobility in Italy?
There are still obstacles to the expansion of micro-mobility. Among them, road safety for all users. On average, an Italian rider cycles less than 100 km per year, compared to 1100 km for a Dutch rider, but is five times more likely to have an accident.
Source: PATH Make way for walking and cycling, 2021
In fact, in 2021, 10% of road accidents with injuries involved cyclists. 207 of them lost their lives. The lack of cycling infrastructure, the lack of respect for traffic regulations and a legislation that has long forgotten about cycling have led to this high exposure of cyclists to risk.
However, in recent months, there has been a change. In August 2022, the Italian Ministry of Sustainable Infrastructure and Mobility unveiled the "Piano generale della mobilità ciclistica" (General Plan for Cycling Mobility). Covering the period 2022-2024, this bike plan, provided by a 2018 law that defined bike paths as infrastructure of national interest, presents the long-term planning to improve and strengthen bike infrastructure throughout Italy. The primary objective is to promote the practice of cycling throughout the territory, including increasing the safety of cyclists. In this way, the plan includes expanding the Italian cycling network Bicitalia to 20,000 km, encouraging large cities to have a Biciplan, achieving a modal share of cycling of 20% in metropolitan cities, increasing the density of cycling infrastructure in cities to a national average value of 32 km per 100 km2 (from 23.4 km in 2019) and developing bike sharing systems. With a budget of 1,154 million euros, this plan is very ambitious and finally places the bike as a mode of transport in its own right.