Good practice:

Bike Challenge Northern Hesse

Cycling to work to improve your health and save the environment while having the chance to win prizes - that's what the Bike Challenge Northern Hesse is all about. The Bike Challenge is organized every year from May 1st to September 30 th by the Regional Management of Northern Hesse. Companies can register to participate in the Bike Challenge. The interested employees of these companies have to download an application and switch it on during their trip to work by bike. The app counts the kilometres that have been driven by bike. The employees have to cycle to work for at least 20 days during the campaign period. The participating companies are based in the region of Northern Hesse. It is distinguished between two categories, an individual and a company evaluation:

EMPLOYEE INDIVIDUAL EVALUATION:
Whoever cycles the most wins! The employees are classified according to the number of kilometres travelled to work by bike. Employees can win in one of five categories depending on the distance to work (round trip). Partial bike routes are also rated (e.g. distance to public transportation).

COMPANY EVALUATION:
Kilometres that have been collected by all employees attending the Bike Challenge in one company are added. The company with the most kilometres wins. Companies can win in one of three categories depending on the number of employees.

After the campaign period, there is an award ceremony at which the main prize, a bike worth € 1000, and many other prizes, are awarded.

The project has no public funding yet. Expenses for prizes are covered by sponsors. The necessary human resources for the event management amount to about 4 person months per year.

The project aims to support a change in individual mobility behaviour. It thereby also helps companies to focus on the environment and to reduce the carbon footprint. For example, during the Bike Challenge in 2018, more than 400.000 kilometres were covered by bike, saving around 65 tons of CO2. A total of 588 employees participated.

Furthermore, the project contributes to health promotion. The long-term risk of falling ill is reduced while endurance and fitness increase.

When you organize such a challenge, we recommend to work together with companies as sponsors who support the project with financial grants and winning prizes.

IT problems can occur. For example, kilometres could not have been count by the app. We recommend to have a good IT-support.

The Bike Challenge can easily be implemented in other cities or regions in order to encourage company employees to use the bike instead of the car. In this way, by changing the individual mobility behaviour a contribution to the environmental protection can be made and additionally companies have the chance to promote their environmentally friendly corporate image.