The Test
Living lab experiment
The idea behind a living lab is to offer a location in which an innovative technique is tested in a real world situation. Collaborating with all stakeholders, this real-life experiment provides insights a lab experiment would not provide.
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During this living lab, the concept of parking e-scooters in bicycle racks was tested on the Marineterrein using a wide variaty of participants and knowledge available at the Marieneterrein.
Amsterdam Bicycle Racks
Willingness to walk
Amsterdam's Spatial Distribution
Parking Potential
User Parking
Methodology
During this living lab, the types and distribution of bicycle racks in Amsterdam were analyzed. This was followed by actually testing the parking of an e-scooter in the most common and potentially promising bicycle racks. Besides experimenting with the parking act, the users were also surveyed about their behaviour and feelings in relation to the e-scooter parking.
The main question this research wants to answer is:
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How can the existing bicycle rack infrastructure of Amsterdam be utilized in order to function as a station based e-scooter parking network?
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This research is structured around 5 sub research questions which provided us with insights into the different aspacts of e-scooter parking and bicycle parking infrastructure:
Prior to the experiment, the living lab team themselves tested how the e-scooters could potentially be parked in the bicycle racks at the Marineterrein and ranked these attempts.
During the experiment, 30 users were asked to park an e-scooter in two different bicycle racks. These bicycle racks were filled to represent 3 different situations: a fully filled rack, a a partially filled rack with one open spot and an empty rack. The experiment provided insights in the user behaviour through the collection of data on 180 different parking acts over 3 situations and 2 bicycle racks.
The users were also asked to grade each parking act
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What are different types of bicycle racks in Amsterdam?
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What is the spatial distribution of the bicycle rack infrastructure in Amsterdam?
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What is the distance people from Amsterdam are willing to travel from a hub towards their final destination?
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What are potential ways of parking e-scooters in bicycle racks?
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How do users park an e-scooter in a bicycle rack?
Subquestions
Amsterdam Bicycle Racks
The inner city of Amsterdam is equipped with a wide variety of bicycle racks on and near the sidewalks. In tota 11 different classes of bicycle racks are identified on the map, totalling 22.909 bicycle parking facilities. These parking facilities provide parking places for 247.248 bicycles throughout the whole city centre.
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This map clearly shows the grouped Velopa Tulip placement through out the city, namely centred around stations and north of the Vondelpark.
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During the experiment, the 60P and the standard high-low bicycle rack were used to analyze the concept of parking an e-scooter at a bicycle rack. This 60P bicycle rack is however similar to the 75P type, with the only difference being its metal support bar. This means that the research is applicable to at least three bicycle racks. For the city of Amsterdam, this means that our research is applicable to 54.5% of all bicycle rack capacity.
Amsterdam's Spatial Distribution
The map on the right shows a clear distribution of the bicycle racks in the Amsterdam city centre. The red glowing areas show that around public transport hubs like Amsterdam Centraal, the business district near the zuid-as and station Amstel the density of bicycle racks is very high compared to the other parts of the city.
The Leidseplein and the Weesperstraat also show high densities of bicycle racks along the streets.
Willingness to walk
In total, 124 people provided us with the maximum distance they were willing to walk from their parked e-scooter in a bicycle rack towards their final destination. On average, this distance is 216 meters, which equals roughly 2 to 3 minutes walking.
Parking Potential
Prior to the user experiment, the bicycle racks available at the Marineterrein or purchased for this research had been analyzed on the possibility to park an e-scooter in or at the bicycle rack.
For each bicycle rack, 6 attempts were made to park the e-scooter based on the orientation of the scooter and the placement of the wheel. By following this method, different bicycle racks could be analyzed through the shared variable which is the orientation of the e-scooter.
For some bicycle racks, it was not possible to test all 6 different orientations due to the characteristics of the bicyce rack and its slot size.
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Forwards in a slot
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Backwards in a slot
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Forwards in front of a slot
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Backwards in front of a slot
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Forwards between slots
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Backwards between slots
Orientations
Requirements
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Stability
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Ease of Parking
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Ease of Departure
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Damage Risk
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Space Efficiency
Every attempt that resulted in a parked e-scooter was then ranked on five different requirement themes. Those themes were split up in three more specific requirements on which the parking act was graded. 1 Point was given for each requirement the parking act fullfilled.
The most ideal situation would result in 15 points: a stable parked e-scooter that was parked efficiently in the available space, that was easy to park and depart and posed no risk for damage to the e-scooter.
The lowest score possible to obtain was 0 points: an unstable parked e-scooter that was hard to park and to depart with, which could easiliy be damaged and was not parked efficiently in the allocated space.
Best potential methods
Worst potential method
The highest scoring methods of parking an e-scooter turned out to be in front of the rack with its wheel outside the slot.
The lowest scoring method of parking an e-scooter turned out to be backwards in the slot of the bicycle racks at the central station. In this bicycle rack, rack 8, it is only possbile to park backwards into the slot.
Either forwards or backwards, this method of parking scored 13 points for the two racks used during the experiment. This method did not score 15 points due to the fact that the e-scooter was not parked with its wheel in a slot and because it took the parking spot of a bicycle.
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Parking backwards in bicycle rack 8 scored 5 points. It is hard to park and depart in rack 8 with an e-scooter. The e-scooter is also at risk of getting damaged and takes up the space of an bicycle. This all leads to parking backwards in the slot in bicycle rack 8 achieving only 5 points.
User Parking
Methods
The majority of the users parked their e-scooters differently from the potentially best method. Only 18% of the users parked their e-scooters forwards in front of a slot, the highest scoring method scoring 13 points. 64% of the users parked their e-scooter with one wheel inside the bicycle rack but not in a slot. This method scored lower than the optimal method, showing the difference in user behaviour and the potential methods found.
When parking the e-scooter, only 5% of the 180 different parking acts resulted in an e-scooter being parked backwards. This 5% was carried out by only 4 different users.
Orientation
Grading
The grading process showed that when users parked the e-scooter in an already filled bicycle rack, they were not satisfied with the result.
Situation 1 and situation 6, respectively parking in a full bicycle rack type 3 and the 60P ended up as the worst staisfying parking act by respectively 83% and 60% of the users.
In those situations the e-scooters ended up parked unstable, were difficult to manoeuvre and sometimes even extended in length compared to the other bicycles. In the example on the right it is seen that no kick-stand is used and the bicycles and e-scooter are prone to damage due to them being in contact with each other.
Only 23% of the users graded situation 4 as their most satisfying parking act. This situation represents a partially filled bicycle rack with one open slot, the situation in which the potentially best parking method can be used. An example of this method in rack 60P is showed in the image on the right.
