In Bonn, Germany, these sleek bike elevators help store more bikes in a tiny footprint
These sleek bike elevators help store more bikes in a tiny footprint
Swiss startup V-Locker designed a bike storage system that can be installed near train stations and give commuters a safe way to store their bikes.
BY Adele Peters
As the German city of Bonn works on a plan to eliminate emissions in its city center, it’s trying to make it easier to bike. It’s eliminating hundreds of parking spaces to make room for more bike lanes. It’s adding new cycling highways to help commuters ride longer distances. And at some train stations, it’s starting to use sleek new bike-parking towers to quickly add more storage space for commuters who ride to the station.
The challenge of where to leave your bike is common at train stations around Europe. “We have a lot of commuters with bikes, and there are huge problems around the stations,” says Elisabeth Brand, chief commercial officer at V-Locker, the Swiss startup that designed the towers. It can be hard to find a place to lock up your bike, and hard to find it later in a sea of hundreds of others. Theft is common. For the growing number of people who ride expensive e-bikes, the lack of secure storage can be a reason not to ride.
Some cities, like Amsterdam, are designing massive new bike garages in response. But V-Locker’s bike towers, which take only a couple of days to install, can add a little extra storage in a small footprint. Inside the modular tower, open bike lockers move in a loop. (The system works like a traditional “pasternoster” elevator, which is rarely used now for people, but makes it easy to access multiple bike lockers in a small space.)
Riders can use an app to check in advance if there’s space available at the station and book a locker. At the station, they use the app to unlock the system and pay a small fee. Then an empty locker descends and the door opens. You can store your bike, helmet, and other gear inside for a few hours or a day. It’s large enough that a cargo bike can fit inside. The system also allows for deliveries, so you can get a package added to your locker while you’re at work. A tower can hold up to a dozen bikes. The modular design can scale up at large stations. One station in Mühlacker, Germany, has 10 towers and room for 120 bikes.
The startup has now installed its systems in more than a dozen cities. So far, they’re all at train stations, a key location for cities that are trying to help commuters switch from driving. But they could later be added at universities, apartment buildings, shopping centers, and other places where more bike parking is needed. In Bonn, they’re one part of new “mobility hubs” that will also include charging for e-bikes and electric cars, e-bike rental and car sharing, and other services designed to make it easier to avoid solo driving.
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