Bergamo rewards citizens who use bicycles for their home-work trips

If your municipality gave you €30 a month to cycle to work, would you do it?

From 3 October to 31 December 2022, the second phase of "We reward you for going to work by bike" begins in Bergamo.

The first phase was started in 2020 for employees of the Municipality of the province of Bergamo and of the local transport company ATB.

This is a reimbursement of the kilometers cycled, validated by a kit provided by the Municipality, aimed at workers and students resident and domiciled in the city.

The maximum daily amount is €2 per day up to a maximum of €30 per month.

Citizens will have to fill out an online form, register and collect the kit to install on their bicycle. An app will then record the routes, the map and the kilometers travelled, thus allowing access to the incentives.

To encourage participation and stimulate competition, additional prizes have been designed for the first 10 cyclists who pedal the most. Furthermore, every month, the minimum goal of 12 home-school or school-work trips must be achieved.

“We thought of an incentive to move in a green way through the patented gaming system (game-based) called PinBike" they explain from the mobility department “In fact, a kit with anti-fraud technology, installed on the citizen's vehicle, thanks to a hardware control, certifies the urban routes actually taken by bicycle during the home-work or home-school routes”.

The prerequisite to obtain it is not only to carry out work or school activities in the Bergamo area: “Citizens who do not work here, but who travel every day to the Piazzale Marconi velostation and then take other means of transport, can also apply”, told by the mobility department.

The project then directly involves the city's commercial activities as the reimbursements will be spent exclusively on local commercial activities.

The objective of the project is to involve the entire community in concrete actions for sustainable mobility, as well as reducing air pollution, traffic and raising citizens' awareness of the positive impact on the environment and health.