After two successful bicycle challenges in 2020 and 2021, Baron started with it’s third pilot, the CO² Fit Challenge on the first of September 2022.
Baron is cooperating with a new app provider in this pilot, the German company Blacksquared GmbH with the app Changers CO² Fit. The app is similar to the Ciclogreen App, which was used in the first two pilots. The Changers app differentiates however with more gamification and tracking functions.
The Ciclogreen app only allowed manual tracking at the time being, where the users had to manually press start and stop before the bicycle trips and which caused much discontentment among the users.
With the Changers app, different tracking options are possible, from manual tracking, Google Fit, Apple Health to wearables like Garmin, Fitbit or Misfit. Automatic tracking is also possible and recommended to use during the challenge. This setting records all routes, whether on foot, by bike, by car, by public transport or even by plane and detects the used mode of transportation. Based on this data, a CO² profile is created, displaying the saved and the emitted CO² emissions. The Changers app also provides the function of a community, where the users can share their cycling experiences. Furthermore, the app provides health and lifestyle activities, in which the users can participate, set reminders, get tips, watch videos and earn points.
The CO² Fit Challenge, also called “MeinDienstradeln Challenge” in German had a really successful start in the beginning of September. Two companies with headquarters in cities in the German states Schleswig-Holstein, Sachsen, Hamburg, Brandenburg and Berlin launched the CO² Fit Challenge within their companies and with their employees on the 1st and on the 5th of September.
One company is a big company with headquarters in all of the mentioned states above. It is a former very active participant of the Business Bike Challenge and already familiar with these kind of cycling challenges. In the Business Bike challenge 50 employees participated actively in the challenge, who cycled a total of around 16.500 km by bike. In the current CO² Fit challenge the number of active users could be more than doubled. 126 employees are actively participating, who already cycled a total of 15.712 km by bike in the past weeks since the 1st of September 2022.
The other company is a smaller company, located in a small town close to Hamburg. It is their first time in participating in a bicycle challenge. They started their challenge on the 5th of September 2022 and have cycled a total of 317 km with 12 employees so far.
The challenges will last until the 30th of September for the first company and until the 15th of September for the second company. Baron is excited for the final results, the cycling data and the evaluation results which will come out of this final pilot.
Besides the new implementation, Baron carried out the BITS evaluation recommendation workshop together with Griet Vanwynsberghe from VIVES Hogeschool and Jana Klemp from the University of Oldenburg on the 8th of September through an online event. The goal of the workshop was the evaluation of the BITS projects of Baron – the bicycle challenges - and the BITS project of the University of Oldenburg – the Bicycle Data project. 23 people registered beforehand and in the end 15 external people plus the 5 moderators from the BITS team took part in the workshop. Contents of the workshop were presentations about the bicycle challenges of Baron, about the project Bicycle Data of the University of Oldenburg and about the lessons learned out of these projects from VIVES Hogeschool. Although the attendance unfortunately declined to only 4 external participants during the working groups in the end, these topics were then further discussed in two parallel working groups. Some interesting conclusions could be drawn out of the workshops, which will be integrated in the evaluation reports.
Baron is looking forward to the coming weeks of the CO² Fit challenge and the final months of the BITS project.