Staff at Heathrow, who live a short distance from the airport, are being loaned BMW Cruise e-bikes over the summer months to encourage sustainable transport to and from work.
The ‘Try a bike on us’ campaign coincides with National Bike Week and is an initiative by the airport and BMW to get more of the 16,500 airport staff to ride to work and leave the car at home.
From June until the end of August, staff living within 5km of the airport can borrow a BMW electric bike (or ordinary cycle) without cost.
Heathrow has a ‘Commuter Team’ committed to reducing the number of airport colleagues driving to work and in the last 5 years has decreased single occupancy car journeys to work by over 10% from 61.4% to 50.9%. A quarter also use a bus to commute every day.
John Holland-Kaye, Heathrow Chief Executive, says: “Heathrow’s cycling journey began by opening up our own bike shop back in 2010 and installing hundreds of free cycle parking spaces around the airport campus. More than 900 of our colleagues working at the airport travelled to work on their cycle at the peak of summer last year and with this trial, we hope to push this number past a thousand this year. Working with partners like BMW on campaigns like ‘Try a bike on us’, our aim is to completely transform the cycling experience to Heathrow Airport and become a more environmentally friendly neighbour to local communities because of this.”
A statement from Heathrow Airport says: “Cycling is an essential part of Heathrow’s vision of building the next generation of airport, one that is designed around not only the passenger but also the environment and the local community. It will be the world’s best connected, most efficient and most environmentally responsible hub airport at the heart of an integrated transport system.”
