This is the first news article of the recently approved, new Interreg North Sea project MegaBITS, which will be running from May 2023 till May 2026. MegaBITS is about smart cycling and it is the follow up of the successful BITS project, which ran from 2019 until 2022.
Within BITS we organised more than 30 cycling and ITS pilot projects in different partner cities. That was a good result, but just the start of a movement to raise awareness for the added value of ITS solutions for cycling, especially outside our BITS project team. We started to build a BITS community for people to follow us and getting inspired by the possibilities of this topic. We made a BITS directory to help regions and municipalities to find suitable ITS solutions and ITS providers for their specific cycling challenges. And we worked on the Cycle Data Hub, to gather and share cycling data. We spread the word like some sort of evangelists on both cycling and ITS congresses and other events around Europe.
We started all this, but we were not done yet. We sensed the need to continue and to raise even more awareness and enthusiasm for this topic. With the help of a few new partners we hope to bring smart cycling to the next level within this new MegaBITS project. We will build on the results of BITS, but we will include more Bike and ITS topics to cover the whole new ecosystem. And we will also try to upscale some successful projects not only within the MegaBITS consortium but also outside our little group. Therefore we will build 5 ITS flagships in Copenhagen, Hamburg, Le Havre, the Province of Antwerp and the Province of Overijssel, to stimulate cycling in the respective cities and regions, and as an example for others. Moreover, we will actively advocate for moving cycing up the priority list among policymakers within the EU as well as those in the memeber states.
As a representative of the Province of Overijssel I can say that we are very proud to be lead partner of MegaBITS, as we were at BITS. I hope this newsletter will inspire you to join our MegaBITS community and follow our activities. And feel free to contribute to our project. Questions, ideas and so on, they are all very welcome.
All the best,
Wim Dijkstra
Strategic Mobility Advisor
Province of Overijssel
Netherlands