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Transportation and mobility: products and services
Published in Jane Penty, Product Design and Sustainability, 2019
The second approach to extending a bicycle’s range is to reduce the physical effort required by adding an electric motor that assists the pedalling. These are known as e-bikes, pedal-assist bicycles or pedelecs. Not only do they extend the distance which bicycles can cover; they also make cycling much more accessible to a broader range of physical abilities and ages. Studies in Norway confirm that e-bikes do increase modal share, distance travelled and also female uptake.80 Of course pedal-assisted bikes (top speed of 25km/15.5mph in the EU) do use power, and as with cars, their footprint will depend on the source of the electricity. In figure 8.10 we saw that compared with traditional bicycles, e-bikes powered by renewables increase whole lifecycle ecocosts by 60%, while an e-bike charged on the Swiss grid doubles the ecocosts, making it comparable to a tram ride.
From bike to electric bike level-of-service
Published in Transport Reviews, 2022
Khashayar Kazemzadeh, Enrico Ronchi
E-bikes can be classified based on different criteria such as power, speed, and design. The provided power of e-bikes can be classified into three types including pure e-bikes, power-assisted e-bikes (pedelecs), and the combination of the pure and power-assisted types. In the pure type, the rider does not need the pedalling and the power is transferred from the battery to the motor by the user controls of the handlebar throttle. Power-assisted e-bikes (pedelec) are a human-electric hybrid type that helps the rider when pedalling. This type is equipped with a sensor to measure the pedalling speed and force or both of them (Muetze & Tan, 2007). The combination of pure and power-assisted types is considered as the third type. In this type, the driving power of the e-bike can be controlled either through the handlebar throttle (for the pure type) or it is a combination of rider and motor power (for pedelecs) (Hung & Lim, 2020). The European Commission also classified e-bikes based on speed and motor power including powered bikes and moped as the two main categories of throttle-controlled e-bikes. The powered bike has speed <25 km/h, and the motor power <1000 W, while moped has a speed range between 25 and 45 km/h and motor power of 1000–4000 W. The Speed-pedelecs (S-Pedelecs) require pedalling and can reach speeds over 32 km/h. S-Pedelecs are also classified as mopeds. Also, there is a wide range of commercial design of e-bikes in the market. They mainly range from bike-style e-bikes to scooter-style e-bikes (Fishman & Cherry, 2016).
The two-wheeled renaissance in China—an empirical review of bicycle, E-bike, and motorbike development
Published in International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 2021
Tianqi Gu, Inhi Kim, Graham Currie
At a national level, E-bike policies are few and neutral. Simple technical standards and the transport rights of E-bikes are regulated as set out in the “Road Traffic Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China” (released in 2004), which confirms that E-bikes belong to the non-motor vehicle category (National People’s Congress 2011). Thus, they operate in bicycle lanes because their road-rights are the same as human-powered bicycles. National standards such as the “Electric bicycles – General technical requirements” and “Safety technical specification for electric bicycle” were set in 1999 (GB 17761-1999), then updated in 2018 (GB 17761-2018) (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology 2018); they are quite strict in their definition of “E-bike”. However, Shao (2017) stated that 55% of E-bikes in Shanghai weighed over 40 kg, 90% had a speed limit higher than 20 km/h, and 60% had no manual cycling function, that is, they were non-compliant. An industry report (Guangzhou Modern BRT & Sustainable Transport Institute (ITDP-China) 2017a) declared that almost 95% of E-bikes are “out-of-limit” according to existing standards. Even though the new standard has even higher limits (see Table 9), many E-bikes have higher speeds and larger mass than that set by the standard. Pedelecs (speed < 25 km/h, motor power < 250w) are bicycles which have a small electric motor to assist the rider’s pedaling. Note that under the European regulations, pedelecs, are categorized as bicycles whereas, in China, they are classified as E-bikes.
Who are those fast cyclists? An analysis of speed pedelec users in the Netherlands
Published in International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 2022
Maud van der Salm, Zheyan Chen, Dea van Lierop
Yet, standard e-bikes are not the fastest pedal assisted electric bicycles on the road; speed pedelecs have the potential to travel at even higher speeds, with motorized pedal assistance up to a maximum speed of 45 km/h (de Bruijne, 2016). In Europe, the most commonly used speed pedelecs conform to the category L1e-B of EU-regulation No 168/2013, which means that they can have an auxiliary electric motor with a maximum of 4000 Watts, and can support pedal assistance up to 45 km/h. In contrast, a standard e-bike can have a maximum power of 250 Watt and a maximum speed of 25 km/h. In the Netherlands, speed pedelecs are a relatively new mode which require users to have a license plate and wear a helmet. The mode is most often used for trips that range from 10 to 40 kilometers and, in this context, 65% of all trips are made for the purpose of commuting (de Bruijne, 2016). The commuting distance across all modes is usually between 15 and 35 kilometers (CBS, 2018, March 15), and therefore the speed pedelec is a promising mode for promoting drivers to switch to using sustainable and active transport. Although policy makers acknowledge that a mode shift from cars to speed pedelecs would result in reduced congestion and environmental benefits, there is currently much uncertainty about where and how speed pedelec users should interact with the urban mobility system. For example, European categorization places speed pedelecs in the same vehicular category as mopeds and scooters, and in the Netherlands the same traffic legislation applies to speed pedelecs as to mopeds and scooters. This means that they are not allowed to ride on bicycle paths, but instead must use regular roads shared with cars and other motorized vehicles, or dedicated bicycle paths that also permit mopeds (Rijksoverheid, 2018). As a result, speed pedelec users only have partial access to the extensive bicycle path network in the Netherlands. In other European counties there are different rules, for example, in Belgium speed pedelec users can choose whether to ride on the road or in a bicycle lane.