How E-Bikes Are Reaching New Communities: Learnings from our Wales Conference

It is not often that you go to a break out session at a conference and hear about elephants and a nun riding an E bike, but at the CTA Wales Conference breakout session Extending transport Provision through E-Bikes, we heard all about one of the nuns from Skanda Vale Hospice in Wales using an E bike to get around the hospice site and we saw the elephants that live alongside her and her community at the hospice. It was a fantastic illustration of how extending the way we think about CT can have an impact on people and communities that more traditional CT options have not reached. It expands our understanding of what CT can be, and our speaker, Rod Bowen from Dolen Teifi, was able to tell us more about how he is using e-bikes in different ways.

Rod spoke to us about how the bikes in his fleet have enhanced his ability to meet the needs of different people and groups in his community, while also reducing carbon emissions, supporting physical and mental wellbeing, and encouraging reduced car use in our towns.

It was interesting to see how the E cargo bikes were making a huge difference to the Cardi Shed, a community project in Cardigan. It enabled them not only to move equipment but also to support people who came to the shed to access the health centre and job centre. “It is a way to empower the community to do something about climate change,” they said.

We also met Gillan from Age Cymru Dyfed, who is using her bike to commute to and from work after finding it difficult to afford car repairs. She was not a regular bike user before, but is now using her e-bike in all weathers and enjoying the way it is making her feel.

E-bikes are relatively new to consider as part of CT, and this is in part thanks to the assets transferred from the Sustrans E-Move project to some of our operators in Wales, which has enabled us to explore their potential use. It is clear that long term supported loans of E bikes have great value to those that use them. Alongside support for them to be maintained, appropriate training and cost-effective loan payments, we are seeing them being used to access work, leisure and the public transport network. There is a wide range of bike types to choose from, ensuring that there is always one that meets a specific need.

CTA knows that operators are always looking for ways to enable people to travel better, and e-bikes certainly seem to have a place within our network. For more information on E bikes please see our resource here Setting Up a Community eBike Scheme | Community Transport Association.

We would like to thank Rod for taking the time to tell us about the work that he does and to all those that attended the session at the CTA Wales Conference.