VIDEO ANIMATION: Where Boris Bikes Go During the Day

[EdBike]

Where Boris Bikes Go: [VIDEO ANIMATION]

Excellent video animation I found tracking the movements of Boris Bikes across London. Even at peak times though, there are still only around one thousand in use.

Look and see where all the major stations are, and the traffic patterns around rush hour.

Ed

 

[Streethawk]

Hmmm, tracking how? As far as i know here's no GPS on them, so its simply a case of which docking station they left and which they were returned to. Accurate at commuting times, but not for throughout the day use i'd have though?

Interesting that only a thousand are ever in use at one time though, that seems a very low number. Although i have to admit, i wouldn't use them if i had my own bike available, and perhaps people who do use them regularly end up getting their own bikes, which is now bad thing.

 

[flecc]

Even at peak times though, there are still only around one thousand in use.

Good animation idea.

The lack of use is largely as I predicted elsewhere in the forum. There's a huge amount of hype, excessive optimism and even downright lies surrounding these city hire schemes, mostly due to vested interests.

The largest of them by far, the Paris Velib scheme has been a failure in numerous ways, with much suppression or playing down of the unpalatable truths. In part that's been due to the bikes involved being less than ideal far hack use, but in avoiding that pitfall the London bike version is horribly heavy, slow and unappealing in use. That fact, combined with very unfavourable cycling conditions and publicity surrounding cycling deaths and injuries in London militate against the London scheme ever being very popular.

As the London bike is very heavy, perhaps it would have been better to make it a sound hub-motor one with SLA batteries that automatically plugged in for charge top up at each docking. Having some power assist would have made them much more popular, especially with the young set.
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[eddieo]

My daughter has just signed up for scheme tonight. she is at the LSE in London and accommodation just of Tottenham court road. she tried one last week, a friend at Uni lent her his pass and she liked it...pretty flat terrain though so OK I guess, docking points everywhere, even on campus, and if you only have it for 30 minuted no charge. trick is to dock it and carry on with your journey apparently lol

 

[EdBike]

As the London bike is very heavy, perhaps it would have been better to make it a sound hub-motor one with SLA batteries that automatically plugged in for charge top up at each docking. Having some power assist would have made them much more popular, especially with the young set.
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I'll put together a presentation for next week and we'll pitch it to Boris. Something like that would do wonders for the e-bike industry.

 

[HarryB]

I often chat to riders of the boris bike and found them to be really happy with the scheme and even the bikes - a bit low geared perhaps. Sure they are heavy but there are not that many hills around the areas they are docked so the high weight is not a big problem. I also see plenty of riders that are clearly not regular cyclist for what that is worth.

 

[indalo]

The largest of them by far, the Paris Velib scheme has been a failure in numerous ways, with much suppression or playing down of the unpalatable truths.

I'm not equipped to comment on whether the Parisian scheme is a success or failure but I spent a few days in Paris at the turn of the year and saw quite a lot of rental bikes in use. To ride around central Paris on those machines takes a lot of bottle in my view but plenty of French seem to have the necessary courage from what I saw. Shame some of that spirit wasn't evident in 1940!

A couple of years ago, I spent some time in Lyon, (really worth seeing if you've never been) and the bike-hire scheme there, from what I was told by students, was hugely popular and I certainly saw plenty of the bikes in use during my stay. The local authority there had several trucks on the go, constantly balancing the supply/demand situation around the city so that there were always bikes available where required. On the face of it, the system worked well in practice.

Lyon has an interesting public transport mix, in that one can ride on a bus, a trolleybus, tramcar, underground metro and a funicular railway all in the same city. It's one of the places I've promised myself I'll return to if only for the fabulous restaurant food in the old quarter.

I really hope all these schemes prove successful in the longer term as I'm sure it will impact for the good by bringing about measurable car use reduction in our cities.

Indalo

 

[flecc]

The Velib scheme is certainly popular, that's not a problem. It's other factors that are, including runaway costs for multiple reasons.

The redistribution of bikes is also a Paris problem, mainly due to those who won't tackle the hills and leave large numbers at the foot in zones where there is little demand. The Paris answer is electric vans and drivers to get them to the top!

I don't know Lyon, but used to live and work in Paris at one time and have an extensive French branch of my family in and around that area.
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