As of immediately, Kreiswerke Barnim is offering a multi-day workshop format on the subject of electric car sharing in rural areas for municipalities, municipal utilities and companies, under the title “BARshare erfahr:BAR”.
The new information offer, which was developed by the BARshare team of Kreiswerke Barnim in 2021, aims to share the knowledge and experience gained on the Barnim BARshare fleet, to provide an exemplary insight into the development processes of electric car sharing for rural areas and to give interested parties the opportunity to be inspired in the development of climate-friendly forms of mobility in the field of e-mobility and car sharing.
The BARshare project received €115,591 in funding in 2019 and €214,000 in 2020 under the Federal Ministry of Digital and Transport’s Electric Mobility Funding Programme. The funding guideline is coordinated by NOW GmbH and implemented by Project Management Jülich (PtJ).
Great demand for sustainable and practicable mobility concepts for rural areas
The establishment of the new format was particularly prompted by the large number of enquiries that BARshare project manager Saskia Schartow and her team received last year: “Now that many people in the Barnim area are already familiar with BARshare, our mobility offer has also made waves beyond the borders of the district. BARshare appears to be a rather unique pioneering project, even beyond the region, which is attracting growing interest in various fields.” The self-initiated development of BARshare as a climate-friendly, communally anchored mobility concept, which was purposefully developed for rural areas and which the Kreiswerke Barnim were able to successfully put into practice with the help of numerous regional partners, seems to have sparked a keen desire for emulation in other Brandenburg districts, and in some cases even in municipalities and companies in southern Germany.
Previously, the team at Kreiswerke Barnim had readily provided information about their fleet system of 40 electric cars and 10 BARshare BIKEs on request and also presented it at various regional and supra-regional conferences and networking events. The value of the painstakingly acquired pioneering knowledge and wealth of experience, the large amount of time required for the networking work and a comparatively small team that was already extremely busy with the day-to-day operation of e-car sharing finally made the Kreiswerke Barnim think about developing a targeted format for transfering this knowledge and expertise more broadly.
2.5 days of know-how on setting up and operating an e-sharing system
The new workshop, which is scheduled to last 2.5 days and is aimed in particular towards municipalities, public utilities and companies in the field of mobility and tourism, deals with the various development stages of an e-car sharing scheme from the development of demand and conception, the procurement of vehicles and installation of the associated charging infrastructure, to the day-to-day business operations, which includes accounting, customer service, maintenance and servicing of the fleet, as well as accompanying marketing and public relations work. The fact that this knowledge transfer within the framework of “BARshare erfahr:BAR” works well was already tested by Kreiswerke Barnim in November 2021, when the Stadtwerke Strausberg GmbH and the Strausberger Eisenbahn GmbH, two first municipal companies from the neighbouring district of Märkisch-Oderland, participated in the workshop.
Following the positive response to the first trial run, Kreiswerke Barnim is now planning to offer the format on a regular basis to interested parties. According to BARshare project manager Saskia Schartow, the prerequisite for this is an easing of the current pandemic situation, which would make in-person events possible again. An online version of the workshop, which is designed for a maximum of 15 people and planned to be held at the Kreiswerke Barnim site in Eberswalde, is not conceivable for Schartow: “We want to use a practical example to show how BARshare works. That’s where the personal interaction at the location of the event is particularly important to us – also to provide enough space for all the individual questions that will inevitably arise while dealing with the topic of electric car sharing.”
Further information on the workshop offer can be found (in German) at: www.barshare.de/workshop or email: or telephone: +49 (0)3334 5262036.
Image source: Kreiswerke Barnim