Bloomsbury Cycle Hire Station
Last week I tweeted about spotting some of the first London Cycle Scheme bike parks around London, and instantly people were confused by the pricing displayed, and the website didn’t really help clear that up.
Thankfully since then they’ve cleared up the points about the pricing scheme and different hire options on the website, although this still leaves them with lots of docking stations which perhaps aren’t all that clear. The main point is, you need to pay an access fee (£1/day, £5/week, £45/annual) and an hourly rate ranging from £1 for half an hour to £50 for a day.
This seems pretty steep to me, and to others. you can generally hire a pretty decent bike for much less than £50 a day, although without the convenience. Of course, the scheme isn’t really expected to target those who want a bike for a whole day, but even still pricing for anything over 2 hours is pricey, and if you’re taking the bike for that long you’re obviously going further afield than the Zone 1 area of the docking stations.
Having said that, I reckon at a push you could probably make it from Kensington Olympia to the Royal London Hospital, the two furthest apart docking stations, in half an hour on a normal bike going full pelt. Not sure about the hire bikes, but this sort of thing could make for a good race!
When they first announced the scheme I was slightly amazed that they hadn’t utilised the Oyster card for the system. I’m not sure what the technicalities of this would have been like, but it would have made sense, given the push to encourage cycling in the city, to integrate bikes into our city wide transport payment system. Alas no, instead those who plump for an annual subscription to cycle get another card to use in order to unlock a bike.
On the plus side I am glad to see that TFL are making data around the scheme free for use by developers. Obviously making the most of location based data and real time knowledge of bike “stock” levels would be highly beneficial.
Wouldn’t it be great to be directed to the nearest bike park AND know whether there are any bikes there to use, similarly making sure there are free parking spots at the bike park closest to my destination, as well as obviously giving route options between points.
Well it seems people are already developing some of these ideas, while others have bigger ideas for apps. From the comments, it sounds like Paris already has an app similar to that described above.
I look forward to seeing what others come up with, but I think I’ll probably stick to my own bike for battering around town.