Preserving the cityscape: automated bicycle storage

Bicycles instead of cars: For the transport revolution to work, cities need more bicycle storage facilities without affecting the cityscape. Japanese manufacturer Giken has created a solution called Eco Cycle for this purpose, which parks bicycles underground completely automatically. To ensure the reliability of this storage solution, the designers chose maintenance-free igus energy chains for cable management. 

With good weather comes the perfect opportunity to cycle into the city. When all the bike racks are occupied, leaving a bicycle unattended almost encourages it to be stolen. This problem affects thousands of cyclists across the world as bicycle racks are in short supply. To combat this issue, Japanese company Giken has come up with a solution: an underground bike storage facility called Eco Cycle.

Giken , a technology manufacturer in Tokyo with almost 700 employees, has developed a robotic system that is fully automated.  This means cyclists don't have to go underground but can instead drop off their bicycle at a pick-up station that resembles an entrance to an elevator. 

A fully automated underground solution 

This innovative design has now been implemented in 26 cities in Japan with plans to expand to other countries in the future. The cyclist simply places the bicycle on a rail on the ground at the registration station then logs the bike using a contactless map scanner app. A door then opens and a gripper at floor level pulls the bicycle over the rail into the interior of the station. The bicycle now stands on the top of a mobile platform that can travel 16 metres down, rotating 360 degrees. The elevator is surrounded by round walls, to which 200 rail-shaped bicycle racks are mounted at regular intervals in a room measuring 8.5 metres in diameter. The elevator goes down, finding a free space where a telescopic mechanism then pushes the bicycle onto the rack, the entire process taking an average of 13 seconds.

igus energy chains protect elevator cables and survive 4.5 million operating cycles

Such a degree of automation has many advantages, but also has a potential downside: Humans are dependent on the reliability of machines. In the event of an elevator defect, for example due to a faulty control cable, cyclists would lose access to their bicycle and need to find an alternative way to travel while this is resolved.

Giken uses energy chains from igus made of high-performance plastic, from the E4.42 and 1400 series. These ensure that the energy and data cables complete movements in the parking system in a controlled manner.

“The energy chains protect the electrical cables in the elevator from mechanical damage and external influences, which is essential for the reliable operation of the entire system,” says Justin Leonard, head of the e-chains business unit at igus UK. The e-chains are easy to assemble and maintain, which increases the cost-effectiveness of the system. In addition, they are extremely robust and tough. “Our energy chains are designed to easily achieve the long service life of up to 4.5 million operating cycles required by Giken.” The lifting axle of the elevator operates at a speed of 3m/s and an acceleration of 3m/s2 (superscript), the telescopic axis even at 4m/s2 (ditto) with a stroke of 2.6m. “The use of our energy chains helps to increase the operational safety and efficiency of the Eco Cycle bicycle storage,” says Leonard.