How can we make cycling in big cities safer? Here’s the answer

Riding a bike can be an easy, fun, sustainable and healthy way of transportation. Considering these positive aspects of cycling, cities should focus on becoming more bicycle-friendly. While there are cycle enthusiasts that have used their bike for as long as they can remember and use it to go almost everywhere, 40% of cyclists in Germany do not feel safe when riding a bike (BMVBS & ADFC, 2019).

Looking at these suboptimal conditions for a sustainable future with increased bicycle usage, we decided that we wanted to change something. There must be a solution that makes riding a bike safer and is relatively easy and quick to implement. We wanted to make a sustainable impact on the bicycle infrastructure in cities. We found a way to do so.

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How can (electric) Carsharing work in rural areas?

The concept of carsharing is pretty straightforward. Instead of owning a vehicle yourself and being attached to the acquisition costs, insurance, repairs and other running costs, you just pay for a vehicle whenever you need one (c.f. mobility on demand). Depending on the provider, costs are usually calculated as a mix between mileage and time. Carsharing offers you the benefits of using a car without the strings attached to owning a car. According to an analysis by Roland Berger (2014) private cars stay idle for 23 hours every day. Thus, carsharing is an environmentally friendly way to increase the efficiency of car usage.

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Home, Smart Home – What do customers expect from smart home systems?

 

The corona virus made a lot of us stay at home more than ever before. A natural reaction to this is trying to make staying at home as nice as possible. An opportunity to make life at home more convenient and efficient are so called smart home systems. Smart home describes a set of technological innovations that aim at improving the living environment of a user by adapting it to his or her individual needs (Abicht et al., 2010). Smart home systems offer various options such as dimming the lights using your phone or automatically shutting the blinds, depending on the time of the day to ensure energy efficiency.

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