There's a plan to launch a similar scheme in London this year....

 

Take a look on the TFL website - direct link is:

 

Cycle Hire scheme | Transport for London

 

I have no firm opinion as to whether it will or will not be successful - but I wouldn't want to put my money on it.

 

Rog.

Despite the propaganda, the Paris Velib scheme has been a disaster. After a couple of years just over half of all the bikes had been stolen, the remainder had a high proportion seriously vandalised and maintenance was proving hugely expensive.

 

The company who were contracted to run the scheme, J.C.Decaux, couldn't agree new terms to continue and walked out on it, and no-one else wants to take it on.

 

Other troubles included people not riding up hills at the end of their journey and just dumping the bikes at the start of hilly areas, overloading those parking stations and providing no bikes for hire at the top of the hilly area. To overcome that Paris had to provide a small fleet of vans with drivers to carry the surplus bikes up the hills and re-park them, more expense.

 

I think the scheme to do the same in London is completely barmy, given the evidence of what has happened in Paris.

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what surprises me though is that if things are so bleak, the scheme is still running nearly a year after the problems came to light, a brand new blog exists for it, and the websites are all still up, surely the whole thing would have been canned by now?

 

that said I doubt it will last in London. in Paris the bulk of the vandalism was blamed on disaffected youths, of which there are no shortage in this country...

I was in Nantes recently. They have a similar scheme there. I'd assume it exists inn other French cities too.

Well it is coming to London...there was a bit on the radio this afternoon about it, the intent is to provide 6000 'Boris' bikes for use. The reporter tried the Paris bikes and solicited feedback from the locals, feedback was positive for the idea but as Flecc pointed out the practicalities of the scheme mean it hasn't worked in practice...

apparently London is getting theirs in July. It seems a lot of European cities (as you would expect, the Scandinavian ones) actually have reasonably successful city bikes schemes currently running, more than I expected!

Yes, there are quite a few city schemes running in various places around the world and all claim success but no hard data is available from most.

 

Paris have talked themselves into a trap with the propaganda, on an Ixion's wheel of their own devising, hence the scheme slogging on.

 

One thing is for certain, if French firm J C Decaux couldn't get it to work, it's hardly likely anyone else will. Decaux are one of the world's largest street advertising outfits, maintaining street advertising signs and bus shelters around the world, including here in London. As such, they probably know more about coping with on-street vandalism than anyone, so it's unlikely anyone else can do better.

 

The fatal flaw with the Velib scheme is the credit card. Stolen credit cards and PINs can be used and once a bike is "in the wild", there is no way of detecting anyone is riding a stolen one, all appear to be equally legitimately ridden. A single freshly stolen card can be quickly used to release a batch of bikes from a rack for a yob and his mates, all never to be recovered. The same goes for those stolen when someone legitimately riding one parks it for a moment to go into a shop or other location. And as for wilful vandalism by the disaffected, how easy is that on derailleur bikes? A swift kick at the rear mechanism and it's ruined, a knife slash into the saddle and that's likewise.

 

I don't know who will run the London scheme, but heaven help us if it's the Greater London Authority itself, for we London taxpayers will end up footing the bill as we are for the Olympics.

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Yes, there are quite a few city schemes running in various places around the world and all claim success but no hard data is available from most.

 

Paris have talked themselves into a trap with the propaganda, on an Ixion's wheel of their own devising, hence the scheme slogging on.

 

One thing is for certain, if French firm J C Decaux couldn't get it to work, it's hardly likely anyone else will. Decaux are one of the world's largest street advertising outfits, maintaining street advertising signs and bus shelters around the world, including here in London. As such, they probably know more about coping with on-street vandalism than anyone, so it's unlikely anyone else can do better.

 

The fatal flaw with the Velib scheme is the credit card. Stolen credit cards and PINs can be used and once a bike is "in the wild", there is no way of detecting anyone is riding a stolen one, all appear to be equally legitimately ridden. A single freshly stolen card can be quickly used to release a batch of bikes from a rack for a yob and his mates, all never to be recovered. The same goes for those stolen when someone legitimately riding one parks it for a moment to go into a shop or other location. And as for wilful vandalism by the disaffected, how easy is that on derailleur bikes? A swift kick at the rear mechanism and it's ruined, a knife slash into the saddle and that's likewise.

 

I don't know who will run the London scheme, but heaven help us if it's the Greater London Authority itself, for we London taxpayers will end up footing the bill as we are for the Olympics.

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You mean Boris won't save the day flecc?

Hey, look on the bright side, at least it gets more kids riding bikes...

 

Maybe the answer is to give cheap bikes away free to anyone who wants one, fingerprint ID every user so they can't just ride to the scrapyard every day, so rendering them effectively valueless. If money is the problem, then take it out of the equation I say. As for the cost of such a scheme, well, surely the ecconomies of scale would play a part, along with increased trade for LBSs to maintain them, decreased road wear, and less pollution. Oh, and there could be a small mandatory insurance scheme to cover the cost of replacement in case of theft(by dear souls who might wan't to make some cash out of scrapping them). It could also be absolutely illegal for a scrap dealer to accept them, and when the thing eventually dies, it gets taken back to source for official replacement and recycling.

 

Perhaps the concept needs some refinement in order to make the bike of no value to anyone apart from its user, but you get my drift?

 

Thoughts? Abuse?

Edited April 2, 201016 yr by Straylight

 

Maybe the answer is to give cheap bikes away free to anyone who wants one,

 

Seriously this is the best way, but no fingerprinting or ID, just a fleet of suitable bikes dumped around everywhere in cheap racks for anyone to help themselves completely free whenever they want.

 

The bikes should have monocoque single tube frames, 20" solid plastic moulded wheels, solid polyurethane tyres so no punctures, rod operated hub roller brakes and single speed with heavy duty light motorcycle style chain and sprockets. Saddle should be a steel platform with a self adhesive moulded rubber block seat, a new one easily stuck on.

 

These would effectively last for extended periods with no maintenance, vandalism would be difficult and no parts would be useful on other bikes.

 

The scheme maintenance could just consist of a van or two with driver to pick up and redistribute any overloads of bikes in certain areas, at the same time filtering out the few that were needing a repair.

 

This would probably cost very much less than the Parisian method.

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The fatal flaw with the Velib scheme is the credit card. Stolen credit cards and PINs can be used and once a bike is "in the wild", there is no way of detecting anyone is riding a stolen one, all appear to be equally legitimately ridden. A single freshly stolen card can be quickly used to release a batch of bikes from a rack for a yob and his mates, all never to be recovered.

 

Anyone "smart" enough to nick credit cards and PINs (both are needed to get the back) is IMO very unlikely to use them for such a trivial and obvious purpose (particularly as a load of yobs riding these bikes would be under the eagle eyes of CCTV) - especially when such fraud can earn then a spell in prison much more so than just nicking a bike or anything else off the street! Plus the computer shows where the stolen card has been used - evidence!

 

Even the yobs here tend to buy 40" tellies, cigs and booze with their stolen cards, or expensive grocery items such as meat they can either eat themselves or convert into cash to buy drugs etc..

 

I thought the main problem was an insecurity in the locking system, whereby the machine could be put back in the rack and "looks" locked but can stil be forced out of the lock by unscrupulous persons..

Edited April 2, 201016 yr by Alex728

Against the facts Alex, I've been keeping tabs on this scheme throughout, and stolen cards and PINs have been used to release these Velib bikes, early reports only mentioning that method. The locking problems have just made things far worse. Also it's well accepted that offenders take absolutely no notice of CCTV in London at least, their hoods and head down are all they need.

 

The thefts from momentary parked bikes at shops etc that I mentioned has no solution since riders don't have cycle locks with them. If they want to pause somewhere, the bike is left unattended and unlocked and only a moment is necessary to take one.

 

The fact remains that over half of all the bikes have been stolen, it doesn't matter how, it just points to the failure of the scheme.

 

A note on credit card theft, as the card companies well know, all knowledgeable thieves routinely do a minor purchase first to ensure the card works before going for the major item.

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Edited April 2, 201016 yr by flecc

I would still think if people really are using stolen cards many are more likely the foreign criminals wanting to export the bikes in containers to their native lands (as has been mentioned in some reports), but a increasing minority of the thefts out of the total.

 

(A comment on christian Wolmar's blog claims that non-FR residents have had cards rejected, implying security here has been beefed up - if a little to the other extreme!)

 

All that said, given though the dates of many of the the negative reports are year old and Europe continues to be in a bitter economic depression, I wonder why Paris is keeping the scheme running?

 

Even if Decaux has walked away from the scheme, Someone must be funding it, their French-language webpages are well up to date - yet I can't believe the French are any more willing to pay taxes for these schemes than Brits or anyone else in Europe... I tried scouring their website but it seems hard to find this info, which surprises me as for all the faults of the British public sector they are much more transparent when it comes to releasing financial data for the scrutiny of citizens.

 

TBH I don't think there is any bright side (other than BoJo being made to look a prize idiot when he introduces the scheme to London, but he is perfectly capable of doing that for much lesser costs to the public purse)

 

Even a lower-cost scheme such as Straylight and flecc mentions if would mean having to dredge the best part of a fair few bikes out of any waterway deep enough for them to be dumped into. I think there is no longer the community spirit in the UK for a scheme like this to work, and this would require a much greater social change (which if it ever happened would mean we'd be safer riding any sort of bike on the road anyway).

Edited April 2, 201016 yr by Alex728

I agree Alex, many of the bikes may indeed be shipped out.

 

Also, as you say, the French are being very tight lipped about how they are keeping the scheme running, I suspect it's on public funds with the sources hidden by accounting tweaks, and could be an under the counter government bail-out.

 

Again as you say, I don't see a bright side for the London scheme, and I'm sure it will be far less well used than the Paris one. The differences in the Parisians and Londoners and the city geographies are very real, except for the vandals and thieves who are common to both cities.

 

As for Boris, words fail me.

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I agree Alex, many of the bikes may indeed be shipped out.

 

Also, as you say, the French are being very tight lipped about how they are keeping the scheme running, I suspect it's on public funds with the sources hidden by accounting tweaks, and could be an under the counter government bail-out.

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for all the claimed Liberté, Égalite et Fraternité, the French government (of all political colours) very often just go ahead and do things without even bothering to consult the local people, anything from foisting nuclear power stations to music festivals on them! (you might think "what is wrong with a music festival?" but I'm sure you'd agree local people should get some say in the matter!)

 

then when the local people get angry they have strikes and riots, which are put down by the Gendarmerie or the CRS, both of which make the metpol TSG at their worst look like fluffy kittens.

 

And yet I am no Francophobe, but I do think for all Whitehall's bumbling bureaucracy there remains a genuine sense of "fair play" in this country, even if it costs more and holds back "progress", as well as a sense of proportion in debate between government and citizens. Although I would also say that British vandals and thieves are much more angry, thuggish and ruthless than French ones..

 

Although I would also say that British vandals and thieves are much more angry, thuggish and ruthless than French ones..

 

From when I lived in Paris I think their French rogues, even the immigrant ones, seem to have a clearer sense of being "French" than our English equivalents who often have no sense of national loyalty to England or English custom and tradition.

 

Though where criminal ruthlessness is concerned, Marseille probably trumps anywhere.

 

On the point of consultation, I think we need a lot more of the French approach where they find it necessary, "that's where the power station is going, so shut up". In effect we do do that ultimately, but we waste many years going through sham consultation and inquiry procedures first.

 

In reality the French public are not as anti-progress as the English though, as witness the way citizens have often encouraged town and city authorities to compete to get a new airport, something that could never happen here.

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On the point of consultation, I think we need a lot more of the French approach where they find it necessary, "that's where the power station is going, so shut up".

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That is helped along by the fact that what we would call the compulsory purchase order is paid at 125% of the agreed valuation.

Maybe the answer is to give cheap bikes away free to anyone who wants one

 

Perhaps the concept needs some refinement in order to make the bike of no value to anyone apart from its user, but you get my drift?

 

Thoughts? Abuse?

 

Could it feasible to operate the bike scheme as park and ride? Instead of parking and taking a bus you could choose to pick up a fully charged Wisper e-bike?

This could provide a win-win situation for everyone. More drivers could experience how much freedom an e-bike gives compared to the bus (or their own car). If Wisper bikes had such a scheme in all large towns they could create lots of jobs for newly qualified e-bike technicians.

The bikes would be returned as drivers need to return for their car. If you drive an electric car you could have its batteries charged while out on the e-bike.

Traffic congestion & pollution could be reduced.

It would help the government meet various targets to reduce global warming.

The scale of economy would come into play making it feasible for Wisper to heavily reduce the cost of their bikes and batteries.

As the scheme reaches saturation bus lanes could be converted into e-bikes/bicycle only lanes.

Society becomes healthier and the government can save even more money.

Old Timer could get paid to make the promotional videos.

Great idea, but I don't see it working in the UK, as I think once people are in their cars, it'd be impossible to get most out of them before their destination. Unless such a scheme was compulsory, and as people don't like anything that's enforced (especially if it's for their own good ), I cant see it being popular.

Instead of parking and taking a bus you could choose to pick up a fully charged Wisper e-bike?

 

This would be a nice idea but I think that cycling requires a positive wish to do so on the part of the traveller.

 

With a car and then bus , you wear what you like and can carry bags of shopping and so on. The bike requires special clothing (in the sense of warm and waterproof rather than Lycra!) and limits your carrying capacity.

 

Also, you need a certain confidence and chuztpah to cycle urban streets, maybe even a bit more in non-cyclists' eyes for an electric bike.

 

The kind of person who would park and cycle would likely carry a folding bike of his own.

 

There might be a case for hiring out non-assisted cycles for park and cycle' (though I doubt it) but electric bikes would just add more expense plus introduce charging problems on top.

 

In a better world, it's be a nice idea but in this one......