Good practice:

Promoting the implementation of a new sustainable mode of transport in city of Bratislava

The good practice accompanies the bike-sharing project of the private oil company Slovnaft and the capital city of Slovakia to create an effective bike rental platform. The project originated from the long-term strategy of Slovnaft focusing on diversifying the company’s portfolio with more sustainable products and services and thus improving the company image. The municipality of Bratislava welcomed the idea and the funds allocated by Slovnaft and helped by cofounding the project and providing the locations for rental stations. Ninety bike-sharing stations with 750 bikes were installed. Before the start of the project, Slovnaft conducted market research by asking the public to find out if there is interest in bike-sharing and who is the core market segment to use the service. They found out that young working people under the age of thirty-five who use public transport for short distance travels regularly are the most promising potential customers. Other segments include students and young people who currently use cars to travel. For the purpose of trying out the service and then creating the habit, Slovnaft decided to set up the lowest prices in the testing period and then increased prices but with an explanation. The launch was accompanied by massive news coverage in print and television media. Slovnaft used social media to promote the project, announced contests and published info and promo videos. It also uses social media and website to get feedback from the citizens.

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While there were some problems with the implementation of the bike-sharing system, the public perception of the project was vastly positive. By June of 2019, around 44,600 users have used the bike-sharing and they made altogether 275 thousand journeys with more than half a million kilometres. The amount of saved CO2 emissions is roughly estimated at 60,000 kilograms.
Slovnaft was also awarded many awards for the project like the Smarthead award and the Via Bona award.

One of the biggest challenges during the implementation of the practice was surprisingly caused by its success. Thanks to the intensive marketing campaign tied to the launch of the bike-sharing service the initial public interest vastly outperformed the capacities of the station network.

The practice is highly transferable to any city/region that wants to implement and promote similar sustainable mobility products.
One of the most important lessons from the practice is to not underestimate the planning stage and use both the primary and secondary sources of information. Slovnaft analysed the past bike-sharing projects and tried to learn and improve. It also conducted a thorough survey with citizens to find out how big is the interest in the project and who the most important target group is. This information helped both in the design of the service by choosing the location for the stations and in better targeting of the marketing activities. Another thing to learn from the practice is the pricing policy and its promotion. Slovnaft has chosen to put the prices very low in the testing period of the service and then increase them with a thorough explanation. It gave the customers the possibility to see the advantages of the service and created group of loyal customers.