Stuck in traffic – is there anything worse? Yes, being stuck in traffic on the way to the gym to ride a stationary bicycle. Crazy – but sadly also true!

So, why not incentivise people to do their daily commute by bicycle – and hereby killing two birds with one stone: 1) Alleviating traffic congestion and 2) Giving people exercise without having to go to the gym.

Apart from improving bicycling infrastructure in our cities, I also propose a monetary incentive. Pay people to bicycle (or run) to/from work at a rate of US $0.35 per km. In other words, if you have a 10 km commute to work, you can earn US $3.50 by bicycling to work, or US $7.00 for your full daily commute. Not bad, right? And the “Moneci$e” app for your smart phone will make it easy and come true automatically; see video demonstration below. The rate of US $0.35 per km comes from a detailed economic study of cost impacts on society from commuting by bicycle compare to by car. This Danish study (2005) found the socio-economic benefits of bicycling over driving to be US $0.35 per km. The principal economic savings come from the improvement of peoples health caused by the exercise from bicycling. This makes people less sick and less of a strain on the hospitals. People who bicycle become more energetic and have higher productivity at work. Moreover, the negative health effects of air-pollution are avoided when people shift from cars to bicycling.

Traffic congestion has a huge cost to society. In the USA, traffic congestion cost 0.7% of the GDP. For a person living in a big city, this hidden cost corresponds to about US $1000 per year from wastage of time and petrol while stuck in traffic.

So, with the Monec$e app, let us channel some of the huge expenses stemming from traffic congestion to the people, who chose to commute by bicycling, running or walking and hence help to alleviate the traffic congestion. The 7-minute video below shows how the app, whose name is the combination of “money” and “exercise”, works. The video demonstrates the concept for the app, which was presented at the Clean & Green Hackathon in Singapore, 28 April 2013, organised by the National Environmental Agency (NEA).

If you are interested in commercializing the Monec$e app, please let me know?

Kind regards,

Gregers Reimann, +60122755630, gregers @ ien.com.my
(concept designer)

on behalf of the rest of the team members

Yong Kuan Tan
Wong Koi Hin
Ching Kang Ong
John Cheng

VIDEO  |  Get paid to Bicycle to Work

7-minute demonstration of the Monec$e app

Key measures to improve bicycle infrastructure of cities

Surprising facts on Safety & Traffic flow priorities in Copenhagen, Denmark:

Slides behind the Monec$e app video

Download (PDF, Unknown)