Cycling Industry in Germany / Fahrradwirtschaft

The transition of transport towards sustainable mobility also relates to jobs and employment. In Germany, high employment numbers in the automotive industry are an important argument for a socially acceptable structural change towards sustainable mobility. However, alternative and environmentally friendly modes of transport such as cycling have both high economic significance and job potential, too.

Against this background, the Wuppertal Institute and the Institute for Work and Technology of the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences have conducted a study on the cycling economy. The study "Branchenstudie Fahrradwirtschaft in Deutschland: Unternehmen, Erwerbstätige, Umsatz" (German only) was commissioned by the three German business associations BVZF e. V., VSF e. V. and ZIV e. V. It has systematically determined employment and turnover of the bicycle economy in Germany.

The three main markets of the bicycle economy include

• the production of bicycles,
• their trade, and
• services for the use of bicycles.

We determined employment and turnover in these markets by means of the public tax and employee's statistics. The study included different segments of the bicycle supply chain, most notably cycle tourism.

Results show, the bicycle industry, retail and services is a growth market and operates almost without tax concessions or subsidies. All three main markets (manufacturing, trade and services) have recorded growing turnover and employment in recent years. However, the most important sub-market in terms of employment is cycle tourism, which has been booming for years. In certain upstream and downstream sectors (namely infrastructure and administration) of the value chain, it is also apparent that the promotion of cycling incurs little cost to the public sector.