Salzburg

The City of Salzburg operates an internal shared mobility system for municipal employees, consisting of approximately 150 bicycles, half electric, and optional 1–2 shared electric cars) distributed across eight departments. 

Currently, the system is decentralized and managed via Outlook calendars, which makes booking and administration inefficient and inconsistent. 

Keys and bikes are stored locally in each department. While some offices enforce basic check-out via Outlook, others allow access without booking, leaving no reliable audit trail of who used which vehicle, when or where, contributing to losses and occasional theft. E-bike charging is likewise ad hoc, with no shared visibility of battery status or charger availability, which at times leaves vehicles unready for use. 

Usage data (e.g., trips, distances, or CO₂ savings) is not systematically tracked, making it impossible to evaluate system performance or link it to the city’s climate and mobility goals. In case of defects or breakdowns—around 40 repairs per year—the designated office representative must manually bring the vehicle to the repair shop. Many employees fail to report damage at all, and there are no preventive maintenance intervals in place. 

The combination of decentralized booking, missing accountability, and the absence of feedback or reporting tools leads to low efficiency, underutilization, and data loss. 

Overall, the existing system is valuable, but booking, feedback, and maintenance are complex and inconsistently organized. This leads to untapped potential – less usage, more administration, and a lack of data for improvements. With a user-friendly solution, clear responsibilities, and simple feedback/maintenance processes, Salzburg can make internal mobility more convenient, efficient, and measurably more sustainable – and make cycling more attractive.  

The aim of this challenge is to make Salzburg’s internal shared mobility system easier, smarter, and more engaging to use – not to introduce a new system, but to enhance what already exists so that more employees use it regularly and responsibly. 

DESIRED SITUATION

A successful solution would help simplify booking, increase visibility of available bikes and cars (incl. basic charging status), and enable quick and easy reporting of issues. It should strengthen accountability and reduce administrative work for city departments, while encouraging employees to choose bicycles over cars for short-distance business trips. 

Through better usability, clear responsibilities, and incentives for frequent use, the city expects to see a noticeable rise in usage across all departments and a stronger sense of ownership among employees. Ideally, the system would also generate basic usage data, such as number of trips, kilometers traveled, or CO₂ savings, to help integrate the initiative into the city’s climate strategy and mobility monitoring.

A slight gamification element can be used to motivate departments, without shifting focus away from operational improvement. The solution should also work with existing charging setups, without requiring new hardware installations. 

While the focus is on improving internal operations, the chosen solution should be future-oriented, meaning it could later connect to or align with Salzburg’s public bike-sharing system if it is implemented. 

KPIs 

1. Data foundation established: Basic usage and CO₂ data collected and visualised, establishing the first consistent dataset for internal shared mobility 
2. Usage coverage: Shared bicycles actively used in ≥70% of departments (baseline: partial use) 
3. Fast booking: Median booking time ≤ 60 seconds (baseline: Outlook process ~1 minute) 
4. Easy reporting: ≥70% of all defects are reported digitally via a simple flow
5. User satisfaction: ≥75% of pilot participants rate usability and satisfaction as “good” or better in the feedback