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Barclays/TFL cycle hire scheme in London

citydreams said:
That's the thing. Procurement is already in place for the preplanned Oyster upgrade. Contracts already stipulate when they need to deliver by. More money will be spent on Oyster integration, but only once money has already been spent on some other type of payment channel to ensure that cycle hire can happen by May 2010.

If Boris held off on the cycle hire scheme for another year then it could all be done at once.

I think it's worth writing to your London Assembly Member more than TfL. It's not their decision.

Another bugbear is that even once Oyster is intergrated into the cycle hire scheme, that doesn't mean that you will be able to use your travelcard to take a bike. There are no plans in place for that. That would require a Mayor with cajones to neogtiate with the Train Operation Compaines for a resettlement over travelcard revenue. I can't see it happening. The TOCs have only just finished twisting our arm over the introduction of the Oyster barriers.
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Well I wouldn't expect to use my travelcard to hire the bike - I was thinking more along the lines of only allowing registered Oysters to hire bikes, and for the hire cost to come out of PAYG.

The cycle scheme just needs to make sure their cards and readers are technically the same as Oyster, so that the switch-over can be as smooth as possible.
 
The scheme in Barcelona requires you to register with a credit card and (iirc) 150 euro deposit. It takes ages to get the card, so is only available to residents - which is probably fair enough.

I think it's a great scheme for any city. Some of the things I noticed:

When they first started running the scheme the big headache was that everyone wanted to park the bikes in the same place at the same time. e.g. beach, centre of town, etc. You'd end up going back to where you started to leave the bike. They do a fair bit of ferrying bikes around in big trucks to sort this out.

In the first few months I saw a lot of accidents. Some quite bloody. Struck me that a lot of people were getting on bikes after years and years not riding them, and doing stupid things.

After a couple of years most of the bikes were really tatty. They don't last long. That'd get expensive.
 
t0bytoo said:
In the first few months I saw a lot of accidents. Some quite bloody. Struck me that a lot of people were getting on bikes after years and years not riding them, and doing stupid things.
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One thing that struck me about the Paris Velibs was that the bikes are incredibly heavy (for good reason) and were in variable states of repair (eg dodgy brakes). They were fine for cruising along, but I found the lack of speed and agility quite unnerving - I'm normally confident riding in traffic but I wasn't comfortable at all on a busy road with a Velib.

Paris specific problem, but I didn't like the way that the bus/cycle lanes were curbed-off from the rest of the road - it meant that there wasn't much room for taxis and buses to give you a decent berth when passing, unless you were riding in the gutter.
 
GLA Budget & Performance Committee said:
the bicycle hire project, which accounts for about a quarter of proposed environment spend, and over 80 per cent of the increase in the budget for this year, appears as yet to offer no targets and fit no strategic plan towards environmental mitiagation or improvement.
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If anyone spots an air quality strategy, please let me know.
 
Crispy said:
It's a secret. Velib is financed by an advertising company (they get free access to half the hoardings associated with the scheme)

I have no idea how the London scheme will be funded.
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Instinctivley you think secrecy isn't good, but - based on citydreams' numbers - the cost (of the scheme) for one company to bear seems extremely high. Perhaps Paris has a very different model . . .


citydreams - My assumption is the Olympics provides the entire context now for delivery of the scheme?
 
In the newly revamped TfL Cycling site - London Cycle Hire scheme

The second pdf looks like it might be worth a nosey - tomorrow.


Key facts

Approximate numbers for the planned launch will include:

* 6,000 cycles
* 400 cycle stations
* 10,500 docking points (allowing approximately 1.7 per cycle should ensure users can return bicycles to the docking point of their choice)
* An area of approximately 44km2

Whether you are a commuter, shopper, local resident, business traveller, leisure user or a visitor to London, the Cycle Hire scheme offers greater choice of transport as well as being an environmentally friendly and healthy way to travel.

The Cycle Hire scheme will:

* Be easy to use for short trips around Central London
* Be available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
* Alleviate congestion on the Tube and buses
* Offer a sustainable and low emission form of transport
* Provide a shift from car usage to cycling
* Encourage local trips within central London

The scheme will offer an innovative addition to London's transport network. It will be good for London, good for Londoners and good for the environment.

We are in partnership with the boroughs of Camden, City of London, City of Westminster, Hackney, Islington, Lambeth, The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, The Royal Parks, Southwark and Tower Hamlets, to identify locations for the cycle stations.




- see the link for more info.




I do love a realistic 'artists impression' :D



cycle-hire-scheme-artists-impression.jpg
 
citydreams said:
There goes £140,000,000

or £4,000 per bike per year.
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"The contract with Serco is valued at approximately £140m over six years, split between installation and operation of the scheme. Revenue from the scheme will be paid directly to TfL"

When I looked at this a while ago, the software issue was a nightmare and I can't quite recall why . . . wasn't it to do with integrating it with Oyster . . .

It's so difficult to price this project in terms of cost/value/benefit because different aspects of the project have radically different lifespans as well as different maintenance projections - at least in my non-professional opinion.

The physical and electronic infrastructure (400 docking stations and the software) do seem to be pretty much a one-off expense that can be written down over an extended period . . . those aspects aren't a write-off over the initial six-year period.

No mention of sponsorship yet?
 
skyscraper101 said:
So no reply nearly 2 months later? :(
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:oops: yes, they replied ages ago

Dear Mr Crispy



Thank you for your email of 17 June 2009.



The Special Projects team at TfL have been tasked by the Mayor to lead on the London Cycle Hire scheme. They have also asked me to thank you for your feedback regarding the scheme and Oyster compatibility.



Please be assured that TfL is working towards identifying the best solution for the integration of Cycle Hire and Oyster for the launch of the scheme in May 2010. It is our intention that users of the scheme will, having created an account and registered certain details, be able to hire a bicycle quickly and conveniently using an Oyster card.



Please regularly check www.tfl.gov.uk/cyclehire for the very latest information on the scheme. Thank you for taking the time to write to TfL.




Yours sincerely



Graham Hurt

Senior Customer Service Advisor - London Streets
Transport for London
Surface Transport Communications
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So Serco get £140m over 6 years to deliver the scheme, and all the revenue goes back to TfL?

Is there an assumption that this will break even? Given that individual journeys will be low/no cost, where will the revenue come from. I can't imagine they can make any money on this. Not that is a reason for not doing it, but the benefits aren't going to be economic are they? :confused:

Also I'd be interested to know if/how Serco will be incentivised to maximise the number of journeys made. As has been seen in Paris and elsewhere, reliability is key, which means that they bikes have to be well maintained and available to pick up and drop off where you want (so you need redistribution of bikes). How will Serco's performance on this kind of reliability be measured?
 
BigPhil said:
How does that compare with overall spend per head on things like Rail, Tube, Road?
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Bus, tube and rail are currently subsidised at around 10 pence per passenger kilometer.

Say revenue per bike is £1 per half hour, and that each bike is ridden 3 hours per day = £2000/annum

Then if average speed is 10km/hour = 30km/day

Subsidy would = 15pence/km (excluding any costs bourne by TfL for administration, network management, additional accidents, pollution...)
 
I suppose, arguably, part of the initial £140m cost for this will come from the Congestion Charge - after the Congestion Charge has paid for all those bus lane cameras and part paid for the busses. Again, more up-front capital expenditure that can be written down over extended periods - and, of course, the CC just keeps giving year after year.

All quiet on the sponsorship front - Virgin, anyone? Right up the capitalist hippy's street, this.

Determined to look green and efficient for 2012 aren't they.
 
London_Calling said:
I suppose, arguably, part of the initial £140m cost for this will come from the Congestion Charge -.
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Not sure... I wonder how much the removal of WEZ is costing TfL.. Funding is coming from the pot of money set aside to improve air quality see http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=9287747&postcount=127

Unfortunately, no one seems interested that dumping a lot of cycles in central London is going to slow speeds considerably for all road users... leading to more pollution.
 
citydreams said:
Unfortunately, no one seems interested that dumping a lot of cycles in central London is going to slow speeds considerably for all road users... leading to more pollution.
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Has this been the experience elsewhere? It must surely be dependent on cycle lane provision. And I'm also a little confused how lower speeds increase pollution, assuming lower speeds and stationary traffic congestion aren't the same thing.

I presume this is also all linked with the super highway plan as well . . .
 
The super highway plan doesn't tie in with the cyclehire scheme at all. Most of the 'highways' terminate before they reach the center, which is where the hire scheme will operate. One's for commuters, the other's for occasionals and tourists.
 
citydreams said:
Not sure... I wonder how much the removal of WEZ is costing TfL.. Funding is coming from the pot of money set aside to improve air quality see http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=9287747&postcount=127

Unfortunately, no one seems interested that dumping a lot of cycles in central London is going to slow speeds considerably for all road users... leading to more pollution.
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Arguably cramming the roads full of incompetent tourist cyclists will frustrate other road users to such degree that they stop driving in central London altogether :D

But seriously I'm not really clear on how it's supposed to help reduce air pollution - surely most of the journeys are either going to be new/generated (trips which wouldn't have been made by any mode if not for the scheme) or substituting public transport (tube or bus). I can't imagine there is going to be much substitution from car. Although I suppose it might free up more space on public transport which encourages substitution from car > PT.

I still think it is A Good Thing, but it's hard to pin the benefits down to something other than 'making London a nicer place'.
 
City Dreams - I'm interested in your comment about more bikes meaning the city will be more polluted. Do you know any evidence to show this? Surely replace oil powered transport with pedal powered there must be less pollution. It's because the car is there in the first place that there is pollution. If the car struggles to overtake it's because there are cars coming the other way stopping it.

I get your point about bikes sometimes slowing cars - but my experience when I ride is any vehicle that overtakes I come across again at the next set of lights. If anything I would have thought when cycles act to calm the traffic between lights. There traffic maintains a more average speed and are more efficient. I've heard people say that the average cycling speed is faster than the average speed of driving.
 
beeboo said:
Arguably cramming the roads full of incompetent tourist cyclists will frustrate other road users to such degree that they stop driving in central London altogether :D

But seriously I'm not really clear on how it's supposed to help reduce air pollution - surely most of the journeys are either going to be new/generated (trips which wouldn't have been made by any mode if not for the scheme) or substituting public transport (tube or bus). I can't imagine there is going to be much substitution from car. Although I suppose it might free up more space on public transport which encourages substitution from car > PT.

I still think it is A Good Thing, but it's hard to pin the benefits down to something other than 'making London a nicer place'.
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I'd be interested if the Paris scheme has had any knock on effects of how people get around.

After using the Velib and realising how easy it is to get around on a bike perhaps people who rarely ride a bike now do so regularly. Not just the Velib bikes but they start to use their own bikes again rather than their car - even if they don't regularly go to areas covered by the Velib scheme.

Also in Paris I believe they have a far better cycle infrastructure now. Surely as it get easier for people to get around on bikes people will use their cars less?
 
BigPhil said:
City Dreams - I'm interested in your comment about more bikes meaning the city will be more polluted. Do you know any evidence to show this? Surely replace oil powered transport with pedal powered there must be less pollution. It's because the car is there in the first place that there is pollution. If the car struggles to overtake it's because there are cars coming the other way stopping it.
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A study was done looking into the Parliament Square scheme to try to determine the pcu (passenger car unit - basically a measure of effect on the network) value for bicycles. Traditionally a value pof 0.25 is used as a global value, but obviously bikes take up different amounts of space depending where they are (e.g. they take up less space on the main body of a road than at a junction..) and how many bikes there are &c..

Using the results of the Parliament Square study (and comparing to traditional 0.25 PCU values), models were run for investigating the possibility of increasing cycle levels in London to meet Boris' vision of a 4-fold increase.

As most new cycle trips in Central London would be coming from public transport rather than from cars, the net effect would be increase demand on the network by about 10% (i.e 1 bus = 3 pcus. 1 bus carries 25 people. If 5 left the bus to become cyclists, then 5/25 * 3 pcus are removed, but 5 * 0.25 pcus are added).

The net effect is that speeds in central London would fall by around 6% in equilibrium.

A 6% fall in speeds in central london is equivalent to.... <starts computer....>
 
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