SUBMISSION ID TP.43: HEALTHY DEVICES FOR ROAD SAFETY Sohaib Hamdan Hasan Jordan Traffic Institute JTI Email address [email protected] Mobile Tel.: 00962798798164 ABSTRACT For the moment; I wanted to follow the flow and present a working paper on more legislation to enforce the law on the roads and modernize vehicles because most of recent legislation is working to modernize vehicles, increase their safety systems and find more modern technology to control roads. But due to the increasing of traffic jams and traffic fatal accidents, increasing in both environmental and noisy pollution, increasing the diseases of obesity, cholesterol and lacking of fitness and the massive increasing of global demand toward the renewable energy sources; I have found that this is the time to talk about one of most suitable alternatives could be founded easily and with low costs to solve all of these problems mentioned above; it is Pedelecs or e-bikes which could be described as (19th century transportation devices with 21th century's technology). In this paper I will focus on the impact of Pedelecs on road safety and the obstacles that impede the spread of such devices in Jordan widely. Finally by discussing the encourage of its use in Jordan and the special legislations needed for using Pedelecs into cities to resolve jams we find the recommendations which we can get from this paper to 8th Traffic Safety Conference/Jordan 2017 in Amman. Keywords: Jordan, Pedelecs, Traffic Jams, Traffic Safety, Pollution, New Legislations. 1 1. Introduction In these days we can hear most people in Jordan complain from traffic jams into cities which drain their times, powers, money and lead the drivers to a lot of bad and outrageous behaviors which cause huge numbers of traffic accidents every year in Jordan. Most jams occur due to the overload of vehicles on the street and by a quick survey we can see clearly that most vehicles into the jam are containing just one person: the driver. This phenomenon cause many problems in addition to the jams like problems of parking, traffic jams on sub-streets,….etc. Due to the increasing of traffic jams and traffic fatal accidents, increasing in both environmental and noisy pollution, increasing the diseases of obesity, cholesterol and lacking of fitness and the massive increasing of global demand toward the renewable energy sources; I have found that this is the time to talk about one of most suitable alternatives could be founded easily and with low coasts to solve all of these problems; it is Pedelecs or e-bike. David Bailey, professor of industrial strategy at the Aston Business School wrote that "e-bikes are going to become popular in cities","A lot of city authorities are concerned about pollution so we will see more e-bikes around," he said. "There are a few companies already doing it. They are trying to show they are environmentally friendly but also, in some cities, it is no longer possible to drive to the centre of town in a car." He added. This Paper will highlight on this possible solution for these traffic problems in Jordan and Middle East countries. But because the most of developed countries around the world started using such kind of devices from many years ago, this paper will focus on the ability of its use in Jordan, its feasibility and the requirements needed to make its use in Jordan Safe. 1.1 Pedelecs; Definition and technical description (Pedal Electric Bikes). Pedelecs shortly (from pedal electric cycle) is a bicycle where the rider's pedaling is assisted by a small electric motor; thus it is a type of low-powered e-bike and also known as booster bike which is a bicycle with an integrated electric motor which can be used for propulsion. Pedelecs is also supported with a buttery recharged by pedal itself. Most electric bikes work a different way. They have compact electric motors built into the hub of the back or front wheel (or mounted in the center of the bike and connected to the pedal sprocket). E-bikes are the electric motor-powered versions of motorized bicycles, which have been around since the late 19th century. Fig.1 Photo: Left: The hub motor of an electric bike with its workings revealed! Sep 14, 2016 In addition; The Consumer Product Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2051 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end of Pedelecs definition the following: "low-speed electric bicycles" The Pedelecs specified mainly depending on its motor capability and thus its speed: 250W = Pedelec speed up to 25km/h. 2 400W = Pedelec speed up to 45km/h. And there are Pedelecs with motor capability 350W, 500W, 750W and 1000W. So; If the bicyclist is pedaling, he can go as fast as he is able to pedal it. Most bikes stop providing electric assist while pedaling at 20 mph. Some will provide assist going at speeds up to about 28 mph. In some mountain countries like Switzerland; it is allowed to use Pedelecs with 1000W motor capability. Some Pedelecs sprint from 0 to 50 km/h reaches only 7.5 seconds. 75 km/h. But all are controlled to be not exceeding 65 km/h in most countries around the world. In the same time there are two styles of propulsion methods: 1. Pedelec or pedal assist. Fig.2 Level of assistance Fig.3 The pedal assisted bicycles let the bicyclist adjust the level of assistance that he isgoing to receive as he pedal. 2. Power on demand or throttle based. Fig.4 The pedals and the motor are independent of each other so you can pedal as much or as little as you like. The more pedaling, the greater the speed and the longer the range. This paper to talk about Pedelec or E-bike because Pedelec or E-bike is much different from an electrical throttled bike, electric motorcycle or moped. While Pedelecs are not nearly as heavy as a motorcycle or moped, most ebikes weigh in excess of 50 pounds while the traditional bicycle weighting 10 pounds! Thus a faster ebike would have to have better brakes. Typical Pedelecs are designed to be easy to pick up and carry onto trains and busses -even airplanes- if the battery is under 300 watt hours. The batteries are the most important parts of the Pedelecs, typical electric bike batteries make about 350–500 W of power – 35 to 50 volts and 10 amps. The weight of battery doubles the Pedelec weight, so That tends to rule out heavy lead-acid batteries like the ones that start cars. Lightweight lithium-ion batteries, similar to those used in laptop computers 3 and mobile phones, are now the most popular though they're more expensive than older rechargeable battery technologies such as nickel-cadmium ("nicad"). Typical batteries give Pedelecs a range of 10– 40 miles between charges (depending on the terrain) and a top speed of 10–20. The range can be extend by pedaling or free-wheeling some of the time but using power all the time limits the range (typically 16–30km or 10–20 miles) and with Power-assist in pedal-assist bikes gives much greater range (as much as 80–145km or 50–90 miles) depending on the terrain. Most e-bikes come in two flavors - one for use by commuters and one as a commercial bike for couriers. Both are linked to a Smartphone app that provides step-by-step navigation. The Copenhagen Wheel can be attached to most ebikes and contains an onboard computer, battery, sensors and motor which respond to the rider's pedaling behavior. An accompanying app allows cyclists to control the level of power assistance, track their journey and share data with other users. 1.2 Evolution of Pedelecs historically. There were real attempts to make Pedelecs from 1895 as shown bellow and these attempts had developed gradually to make the modern design of Pedelecs. Fig.5 E-bikes are the electric motor-powered versions of motorized bicycles, which have been around since the late 19th century. Fig.6 There are several shapes for the personal Pedelecs. This Picture shown the common design of Pedelecs. Picture by kind permission and courtesy of Richard Masoner, published on Flickr under a Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) licence. These days; Pedelecs are one of preferable transportation in developed countries. For instance, Europe and China. In the last five years the Electric bike sales have grown far faster than the sales of any other mode of transportation in the world especially in China, from a modest 150,000 units sold in the late 90s to more than 20 million today. That’s three times as many as the most optimistic projections for cars sales in China for the near future. And worldwide e-bike sales in 2010 estimated to be 24 million. About 300,000 in USA, about 700,000 in Europe, 1.2 million in India, Japan and Taiwan, and 21.6 million in China! 4 Chart1 left, and Chart2 right. Chart3: Electric bicycles are rapidly becoming popular. This chart shows the growth in sales of what the manufacturers refer to as "electric power-assisted cycles (EPACs)" in European countries over the last decade. Over a million electric bikes were sold in Europe in 2014 alone, which is about 6 percent of total European bicycle sales. What this chart doesn't reveal is that the bikes are much more popular in some countries than others: three countries accounted for almost three quarters of all the sales (Germany, 42 percent; the Netherlands, 20 percent; and Belgium, 11 percent).