Groupe Chronos

Citizen Bike : the expression has been coined by Le Club des Villes et Territoires Cyclables. It calls for a new relationship to the city, based on such principles as sharing and exchanges between individuals. The Citizen Bike's goal is to become a "smart bike" (Groupe Chronos' study "Six Challenge for the bike") both for the people, and for the whole city environment. Considering people's enthusiasm towards the bike these last two years, it seems to open the way to new urban perspectives.

The Carrefour des Possibles des Mobilités actives et urbaines organized by the FING and Groupe Chronos gathered 12 innovative projects calling for a reappropriation of urban space by bike riders and pedestrians. They were all about sharing data, places, street furnitures and, of course, the bikes themsleves.

The city environnement

The noise is considered as a kind of pollution and urban dwellers are particularly confronted to it, on a daily basis (research from the Swiss Environment Department).

So Wolf Ka has developped bikes turning into musical instruments in order to fight against car's awful sounds and to open the way to a nice urban symphony. He also imagined a "musical orchestra for a hundred bikes" which could play during a big urban event such as La Nuit Blanche or La Fête de la Musique.

Natacha Roussel also presented an artistic and sensory experience : the walking melodies.The young women has created communicating clothes equiped with sensors which make multiples sounds when two people are walking, jumping or dancing together along the streets.

An entertaining and protective bike

Scooters, cars, trucks, pedestrians and bikes share a common urban space and they all try hard to get more space than the other. This is kind of a street law but cyclists and pedestrians often lose the fight.

Justine Andrieu and Quentin Caille, both students at the ENSCI, have invented a project that could protect the cyclist. Their dicycle Will protects people from the sun and the rain, it can carry two people or your shopping bags and it provides you some light when it's too dark!

In quite a similar way, Cyclo 2.0 offers a range of security clothes - waistcoats, belts, gloves, lights - and imposes its flashy yellow color on the urban scene in order to be seen and accepted. Congratulations to the designers!

An independent bike for travelling

Chronos and the FING, in association with the Club des Villes et des Territoires Cyclables, were also looking for digital applications which could improve the cyclists' autonomy and their adaptation within cities :

• Cyclope is another of ENSCI students' project. It's a GPS navigator for bicylces that has been designed within the scope of the Villes 2.0 program. The idea is for people to choose and register their route on the web. And then, when they ride their bike, they just have to follow the light projected on the street. Better in night time !
• Citybike has been imagined by Olivier Le Bouille. It's a rental service for electric bikes associated with thematic rides with hyperlocal animations.
• Transway is a systemic and comprehensive tool that helps you find your way in the city and provides real time information on all the different modes of transport available on your way.
• Venimecum, created by Frédéric Escat, marks city places with 2D codes that you can read online to get information on the city life. It can also be used as a monitoring tool.

A shared urban bike

Latest news about sharing : data. Despite ethical and legal hurdles, data appear to have great potentials for innovative services.

Vélophonie agglomerates media and multimedia contents on bike in southern European countries and real time services explode :

• Valérie Chatelet's IPhone application is a peer-to-peer service where cyclists tell each other the difficulties they face on cycle roads. Shall we talk about a new urban governance?
• Data from the Barcelona bike share service "Bicing" are modelised by Jens Grivola and his team from the Barcelonamedia. With this piece of information, they are able to draw predictions about the availability of bikes everywhere and at any time in the city. To a broader extent, the use of these data opens the way to new monitoring tools for cities.
• In the same way, Vincent Guimas' FridaV boxes have sensors measuring the pollution, indicating Wifi networks and cyclists' location. They contribute to a better knowlegde of urban spaces, based on a more collaborative, a more comprehensive and better documented approach.

To conclude, urban policies may help putting forward these innovative services. A law project has recently been suggested by deputy Philippe Goujon to further develop cycling practices : employers could pay for cycling costs, as they do for all other transport expenditure.