Would this concept work outside London? Or could it be made to work?

There’s a very similar scheme running in Dublin, seems very popular judging by the number of emplty stands there are during the day

They tried it in Cambridge (IIRC), they all got nicked!

They’re doing well in Boston, DC and more in the US.

They did it b4 in Paris

London already has oyster that helps

I suspect they’re one of the reasons there’s so many people riding in London – it’s a cheap way of trying out cycling for yourself

The scenario: you fancy trying out cycling but you’re scared of getting hurt and it £400+ for a decent bike, so you just carry on driving/tubing/sitting at home getting fat.
A Boris bike allows you to try out riding for yourself and you realise that it’s a quick and pleasant way to get around, and not as dangerous as you thought… maybe I’ll buy myself a bike and do this all the time… job done

It’s worked for years in Lyon, then Paris. Lyon is about the size of Birmingham, so no reason it wouldn’t work there, or in other smaller cities. They just have to budget in that some will get stolen, destroyed etc, and include a deposit in the sign-up.

It doesn’t seem to work so well in DC from what I saw when I was there, and tbh even as an experienced cyclist I wouldn’t have wanted to cycle on their roads, so it also depends on cycle lane provision and driver attitudes. It also depends on how keen the police are on pulling people over for cycling on the pavement, because they have to turn a blind eye to this to a certain extent to get the less confident riding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bicycle_sharing_systems

I guess the answer is Yes, and No.

Some places work, others don’t.

at a guess, I’d say if you’ve got a good source of commuters within a few miles radius and tourists then yes.

They tried it in Cambridge (IIRC), they all got nicked!

That was 1993 and they didn’t have special locked bike storage / hire points, so anyone could pick up a bike and ride off with it (and did).

kimbers – Member
London already has oyster that helps

Boris bikes don’t use Oyster though, it’s a separate key linked to a bank account so you can be charged if you nick the bike.

I think it depends on the city and density of traffic as to whether it will work. In London there is already a tendency towards public transport and walking as it is so unfriendly to drivers (traffic levels, congestion charges, lack of parking etc) so the bike is the natural extension of this.

Is there any other city in the UK where this applies? Somewhere like Edinburgh is just too small in the city centre, and too hilly for non-cyclists to hire a bike for.

at a guess, I’d say if you’ve got a good source of commuters within a few miles radius and tourists then yes.

I’d say it’s a little different to that. Needs a compact city, with lots of people going to and fro once in the city (Stations, meetings, etc) and decent tourist traffic.

I noticed some at Shipley station the other week, which I assume is a Bradford based scheme. There is also a University based short hire cycle-scheme in Leeds – and longer term (in fact term-long) rental schemes at both the Leeds and Bradford Unis.

I think the latter makes more sense – Leeds & Bradford city centres are small enough to walk around comfortably. Station to University is only a 20 minute stroll in both – so faffing on with a hire bike wouldn’t seem worth the effort.

The bikes at Shipley looked a bit heavy as well – it’s pretty hilly – but maybe good for a tootle up the canal to Bingley I guess. Hope my cynicism is misplaced though.

CaptainFlashheart – Member
I’d say it’s a little different to that. Needs a compact city, with lots of people going to and fro once in the city (Stations, meetings, etc) and decent tourist traffic.

I think a massively over capacity public transport system and gridlocked roads help

Somewhere like Edinburgh is just too small in the city centre, and too hilly for non-cyclists to hire a bike for.

I imagine the large number of people who’d deck it riding across the tram lines and then no win/no fee it would put a stop to it pretty quick as well.

Needs a compact city, with lots of people going to and fro once in the city (Stations, meetings, etc) and decent tourist traffic.

London’s huge, though. Which probably helps: if it were too small there would be little point in taking a bike.

Works fine in Luxembourg. I even encountered one bloke 30km outside the city doing a little bit of touring on one despite the fact they’re built like tanks.

scratchbikes did it in newcastle. i used them quite a lot when i lived in town, but they pulled them last year and now i live further out can’t see me using them again anyway. shame really not sure of the exact reason why

Hmm. Well I’m not sure this has to be economically viable in terms of rental income vs cost, because it means you could save a crapload of money on other transport services. But I don’t think people would have to be forced to use it by poor alternatives.

In any city or town there are people who’ve arrived by train and have no car to get somewhere nearby – those people currently use taxis, so a scheme like this would be an alternative. If you could hire a boris bike for longer than 24 hours and if it had a built-in lock so you could secure it anywhere during that period it’d be very useful. Or, if they were all compatible in every town.

You could even have the hire points on trains – this would work quite nicely for the network of Southern Trains for example – lots of people going to and from London.

Not very cost effective are they? BorisBikes are supported by Barclays who fund it (in the main) so taking large sponsorship deals away means it wouldn’t be viable at all.

So, Barclays (until end of the year) sponsor Lonjon.

Maybe Greggs could sponsor Manchester/Leeds/Sheffield?

Bloody council or government need to fund them. Imagine how much transport infrastructure cost it saves. Far cheaper than any other form of public transport.

Greggs is Greggs of Gosforth – so should be sponsoring the Newcastle scheme! I assume you must be some sort of shandy supping southerner to make such a mistake Bikebouy?

We pass the Greggs mothership on the way to the in-laws, hhhmmm the smell of pasty.

footflaps – Member

That was 1993 and they didn’t have special locked bike storage / hire points, so anyone could pick up a bike and ride off with it (and did).

I remember it well.
They were all crappy old bikes painted green.
People took them, sprayed them black and then locked them up.

http://www.bikeandgo.co.uk in liverpool and many other places, and next month we get 1000 more new bikes,and more docking stations,

then theres http://www.bromptondock.co.uk/

It also helps that London is pretty flat!

The one in Bristol went bust several years back. Hardly surprising. They only had about 3 stands in the city itself (and 2 out at UWE Frenchay / Fishponds).

The city stands were all in the centre of the city, so you could not bike out to anywhere as there was nowhere to return the bike to. You could not bike into the city as there were no bikes available in the suburbs. To top it off, all the in city ones were only about 10 mins walk apart, so it was actually faster to walk then to get a bike, cycle through city centre heavy traffic and park the thing again.

UWE was still promoting it after the bike stand on one campus was empty for weeks and the 2 damaged bikes on the other looked unsafe to ride (rusty chain and brake cables).

The parent company right from the very start seemed to make no serious effort to look after the bikes or site them anywhere genuinely useful. I wondered at the time if it was some kind of tax write off scheme or similar and was never intended to actually work.

I think you can now rent Bromptons down by the Temple Meads train station which seems rather fun – they have some kind of locker system there – its a different company to the one mentioned above I think, seems more sorted. I presume you have to return the bikes to the same place.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/riding-a-boris-bike-up-mount-ventoux

olddog – Member
I noticed some at Shipley station the other week, which I assume is a Bradford based scheme.

The bikes at Shipley are part of Bike & go.

From what I can tell the bikes are all based at train stations. The idea is you arrive by train, use the bike, and then return it to the station when you have finished.

There is a Bike2Go hire system in dumfries that is modelled on similar systems in Paris etc…….needless to say it was not a success at getting more dumfries fat bochles to cycle but that’s hardly a surprise, perhaps if they handed out a free Greggs pastie or a voucher for a free McDonalds takeaway with every bike ride it would have been a success but to be honest all it takes is a wander through the town centre to realise that it’d make more financial sense to install a sniper on the roof of the mid steeple and just cull the Bochles and Neds that stoat about.