Amsterdam is undertaking a special project to curb electric bikes. This time it’s really literal.
Amsterdam, the Wild West when it comes to electric bikes, mopeds, fatbikes and other electric-powered violence. While it’s already dangerous to just survive the urban jungle with your bike, it can be quite a task with an e-bike.
To prevent accidents, the City of Amsterdam wants to remotely brake e-bikes in certain areas. But how exactly does it plan to accomplish this?
Electric bikes to automatically brake in Amsterdam
For several years, the nonprofit Townmaking Institute has been working with Odido on a system to automatically brake electric bicycles. That means pedal assistance can be limited from a distance.
This should start happening in Amsterdam in vulnerable areas, such as near schools, parks and crowded areas. The limit then set will be 15 kilometers per hour. The municipality wants to start testing the system with volunteers next year.
The Xyber. (Image: Segway)
When the volunteers approach such a 15-kilometer area, they will see an alert on the screen of their electric bikes. Then the speed is automatically adjusted for the particular area.
Hooks and eyes
Yet that system is not set up overnight. It only works on electric bikes that can be tracked via GPS and have a device to receive speed adjustments via mobile Internet.
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So there’s already a big problem right there. So electric bike owners have to mount such a device on their e-bikes. Why would they just go and do this?
If it becomes mandatory, there are other questions: can they just do it? And is there enough capacity at all among supervisors to monitor this? So there are still quite important questions to be answered and it will probably take years before this measure is actually implemented, if at all.
