I amsterdam - Amsterdam battles bike theft successfully

AFAC processes about 30,000 bicycles every year; checking for signs of theft and engraving the bicycles. The urban district councils send bicycles here after they have been removed for causing obstruction or being incorrectly parked.

The Amsterdam City Council does not do this on its own, but works together with the police and the justice department. The urban district councils also play an important role by determining which bikes should be removed from the streets. Amsterdam was the first city to tackle bicycle theft in this way. The Amsterdam method has been so successful that is has been adopted by other cities. Zwolle, Tilburg and IJmond have all opened their own AFAC and Nijmegen will follow shortly.

Other preventative measures

The AFAC is pivotal in dealing with bicycle theft, but there are of other preventative measures that contribute

1. The engraving team gives bicycles unique codes so that they may be more easily traced should they be stolen. This free service is offered twice a week.
2. There are also people on the streets checking bicycles for signs of theft.
3. Second-hand bicycle dealers have their records checked regularly.
4. Bicycle theft is also prevented by providing more suitable and secure places to park bicycles.

These measures combined have led to 135,000 bicycles being engraved and checked for signs of theft in the past five years. This is about a quarter of the total number of bikes in Amsterdam, which is estimated at 550,000. In Amsterdam only 23% of those whose bicycles were stolen were prepared to report this to the police in 2007. A large percentage of stolen bicycles could therefore not be returned to their owners.

When a bicycle that arrives at AFAC proves to be stolen, it is returned to its original owner for free, if the owner has reported the theft.

Facts about bicycle theft in 2007

From 2002 until 2006 the goal was to reduce the risk of bike theft from 16% to 12%. In 2005 the percentage had already dropped to 10%. For the period 2007-2010 the ambitious goal is to reach 6%. In 2007 the chance that your bike was stolen had dropped further to 8%.

Dutch campaign

On 4th of June in Utrecht Minister ter Horst launched the Dutch campaign urging people to report bicycle theft. This campaign will be run in Amsterdam until late September 2008.