Bondi, Swobbee and APCOA Collaborate on Bike Sharing in The Hague

The emerging Dutch shared mobility startup Bondi, Europe’s leading parking operator APCOA PARKING, and the Berlin-based battery-as-a-service provider Swobbee announce their first joint project in The Hague. In the Dutch metropolis, Bondi operates a fleet of 200 modern e-bikes in a user-friendly free-floating system.

(The Hague/Berlin) With the new cooperation with Swobbee and APCOA, e-bike sharing in The Hague is now even more sustainable and city-friendly. Bondi collects the empty exchange batteries of the pedelecs with electric cargo bikes and replaces them with a few simple steps at the intelligent Swobbee station, which is centrally located on the beach of Scheveningen in an Intergamma parking lot managed by APCOA. At Swobbee’s innovative battery sharing point, fully charged batteries are always available, charged under optimal conditions. A monitoring system ensures that fully functional batteries are always in circulation. This guarantees an efficient, highly flexible sharing service, where the e-bikes are ready for use at any time without long charging breaks, and maximizes sustainability and resource conservation in charging logistics.

New Solutions for the Booming Micromobility

Swobbee is the world’s first manufacturer-independent battery exchange station with a multimodal approach for all micromobility. “Swobbee is the efficient solution for the professional operation of electric small vehicle fleets in sharing use,” explains Sinah Truffat, project manager of Swobbee in the Netherlands. “Our approach enables an easy, comfortable, and cost-optimized transition to electromobility. We are very pleased to create a climate-friendly mobility solution in The Hague together with Bondi and APCOA, thus supporting the city’s sustainability goals.” After Amsterdam and Arnhem, The Hague is already the third location of the Berlin GreenTech startup in the Netherlands. Sinah Truffat emphasizes: “We want to make a big start in the Netherlands; there are ideal conditions for innovative approaches in urban mobility. Our goal is to make Swobbee the e-charging station for micromobility in the Netherlands in the coming years.”

Pressure on Public Space Increases

The pressure on public space in urban areas is increasing at the expense of quality of life. To enhance the quality of life in cities, cars must make way for other forms of transport. With its new e-bike sharing offer, Bondi promotes an active and sustainable lifestyle. Bondi fleet users benefit from seamless mobility throughout the city area of The Hague. Bondi uses electric cargo bikes and electric vans to change batteries and redistribute the bikes.
“We see electric bikes as game changers. You are active and at the same time quickly at your destination. We often find that people in the city are frequently on the road longer by car than by bike. In nice weather, the access roads to Scheveningen quickly become congested, which is also noticeable throughout the rest of the city. The city administration has also recognized the problem and is actively working with stakeholders to encourage people to give up their cars by making other modes of transport more attractive. With Bondi, we offer a fast and responsible means of transport that hopefully contributes to better traffic flow and improved quality of life in the city,” explains Chingiskhan Kazakhstan, CEO of Bondi.

Parking Lots Become Urban Hubs

As part of the company’s sustainability mission, APCOA is transforming its parking facilities into urban hubs and providing the physical and digital infrastructure for strategic partners in the fields of mobility, electrification, logistics, and on-demand services. “The digital and on-demand economy, especially in the areas of mobility and logistics, needs a physical base as well as an intelligent and flexible infrastructure. By strategically expanding the functionality of its parking garages under the APCOA URBAN HUBS brand, APCOA is building an integrated ecosystem of smart city and smart mobility services, actively contributing to the sustainable transformation of urban spaces and the reduction of CO2 emissions,” says Dick de Pater, Sales Director at APCOA Netherlands.
“In the coming years, we want to continuously expand our network of APCOA URBAN HUBS ecosystem partners like Swobbee. For parking lot owners like our partner Intergamma, our expertise creates added value by diversifying cash flows and enabling a sustainable strategy that positively impacts the long-term development of their assets,” explains De Pater.
Photo: © Swobbee