Supervised bicycle park experiment encourages sharing economy in the city of Lahti

The long-awaited supervised bicycle park started on Wednesday, July 8, 2020, at Lahti Market Square. The practice runs on a voluntary basis by Inspis; a flourishing third sector organization who cares for social and environmental causes in Lahti. Inspis was founded in 2009, support youngsters facing difficulties and at risk of unemployment, referred to as NEET. Furthermore, the supervised service introduces citizens to the sharing economy by offering bicycle maintenance and access to a wide range of tools. The service offers supervision for 84 bicycles at a time. The service also offers 15 shared city bikes, which can be borrowed free of charge by showing an identity card and giving their telephone number as insurance. Thus, practising trust between the citizen and the service. Trust is an empirical part of the sharing economy.

Lahti, like other cities in Europe, faces the problem of bicycle theft. The experiment is a solution to the accelerating problem. Thus, joint stakeholders to the project are the city of Lahti, Inspis, and Lahti market square. The citizens act as direct beneficiaries of the practice while the city of Lahti indirectly benefits as the practice reduces carbon emissions and promotes the city's measures to reach Lahti's ambitious climate goals.