Tuttlingen. Whether for tourism in the Danube valley or for the local bike sellers – the trend towards e-bikes has positive effects on economy in our region. This is one of the outcomes of the regional conference “e-bikes and nature tourism”. The Landscape Park Young Danube and the city of Tuttlingen had invited to this event in the civic hall of Tuttlingen within the EU-project LENA.

„E-bikes have the power to motivate people to use bikes again“, said Mr. Henner Lamm of the German Cyclist’s Association Tuttlingen within the podium discussion, which opened the conference. Besides Lamm in the podium took part Ralf Gagstatter (e-motion e-Bike premium shop), Dieter Schaaf (e-manager, city of Tuttlingen), Prof. Dr. Frank Allmendinger (Furtwangen University, campus Tuttlingen), Walter Knittel (Donaubergland Marketing und Tourismus GmbH) und Martin Schmidt (project manager for logistics, traffic, infrastructure, IHK (Chamber of industry and commerce)). 

In his statement Lamm asked the audience to keep in mind, that e-bikers as well as bikers are moving in the normal traffic and especially here in our region there is not given enough “own space” to cyclists currently. This is causing a security risk for users of two-wheeled vehicles. Nevertheless the e-bike could help to bring this important topic more back into focus.

Bicycle dealer Ralf Gagstatter is primarily observing the uprising trend towards e-mountain bikes. Also in the field of cargo bikes with electronic support he sees big potential for development. Whereas the bike market in general is declining, the stake of e-bikes in the market is steadily increasing. There are two big target groups for e-bikes: families, searching for idyllic bike paths towards sights, and commuters, who just want to go fastest from A to B.

Dieter Schaaf saw lots of promising possibilities primarily in field of bike-sharing. He was already in contact with several providers of bike-sharing systems. But for the final realization of such a project it would need political support.

Prof. Dr. Frank Allmendinger is assuming the key role to the connection of different forms of mobility and the improvement of energy storage systems. In this field the Tuttlingen region has an active role: in the electrochemical laboratory in the future Innovation and Research Center (IFC) of the university campus in Tuttlingen will be done research on batteries. A project group is already now working on “second life” of batteries and cells.

Big potential for development Martin Schmidt from the IHK saw within commuters. This was already shown in the project “3Mobil”. He therefore considers the e-bike as a door opener for the establishment of e-mobility in the daily life of people.

Seen from the perspective of tourism, Walter Knittel is highlighting, the e-bike topic has by now replaced the hiking topic as the top trend. But nevertheless chances given through e-bikes could be used far better in the Tuttlingen region. The local topography is offering great potential for further development of the e-bike topic, but to use that, the infrastructure has to be expanded – for example through new bike paths.

Especially, on that all discussants agreed, the e-bike has a very big potential for neutralizing the traffic problems in bigger cities, like e. g. Stuttgart. Also it was obvious for all members of the podium, that a Landesgartenschau (horticultural show; the application for doing a show in Tuttlingen will be done this year for the end of the 2020ies) will carry forward the usage of e-bikes in the region.

After the podium discussion delivered lots of impulses, the participants afterwards had the chance to discuss their ideas in deep in three different workshops – Networked mobility in the Landscape Park Young Danube, E-bikes as a driving force for local tourism, Networking through nature routes and increase in value of nature reserves. Results of the workshops has been among others: implement car-free Sundays in the Danube valley again (20 years ago there have been regular car-free Sundays already), develop train stations as mobility points with all different offers around e-bikes. Also the need for a common digital platform was declared, which is hosted by a regional tourism organization as well as an App for retrieving information on locations of charging stations.

Tuttlingen and the Landscape Park Young Danube are lying in the golden triangle between Lake Constance, Swabian Alp and the Black Forest and are therefore predestined for a model development project as a “mobility cluster”. Within that also the wish for organizing such events on a regular basis was formulated by the participants.

The regional conference took place within the EU-project LENA, in which the Landscape Park is included.