Hi everyone, I’m back from a long hiatus while I was away in Montreal. Now I am back I thought I might share some thoughts on the bike hire scheme in Dumfries run by Hour Bike.
As an avid cycle commuter I fell in love with public bike hire in Montreal. The ability to take a bike a sort distance and not have to worry about it when I’m not using it is wonderful. I had quite a bit of damage done to my Tricross while left unattended in the city so schemes like these let my enjoy city cycling (yes, even rush-hour can be enjoyable!) without any worries.
In Dumfries they have a similar scheme, albeit on a much smaller scale. From the outset it was clear that the scheme would be a little different than the one in Montreal – the hire stations are nowhere as numerous or conveniently located – but I thought I’d give it a go especially as recent media reports have branded the project a failure because of high costs and low ridership.
On the whole the scheme is pretty good. I quite like the chunkier bikes – a lot less fragile than my own. But I also run into a few difficulties that I’ll get into soon enough.
On the bright side the scheme is very cheap to use – just £10 membership with a minimum of £5 in pay-as-you use credit. Dumfries is pretty small so most commuter trips can be completed in the free 30 minute period. Most of the bikes are mechanically sound and the 3-gear hubs are probably right for the location – my fitness is probably not.
But the scheme is a little clunky. To hire a bike you need a card and a pin number and the process take between 30 seconds and a few minutes depending on how fast the system is working. Back in Montreal you dip your RFID card into the reader and the bike is ready by the time you’re done.
The hub stations are located mainly around the edge of the town centre with none in the town centre itself. A satellite stations are on the edges of housing area meaning it could be quite the walk to get to one for a short ride into town. But if you are a tourist or arrive in the town centre by bus then they are in very good places.
I’ve also had to call the Hour Bike team a few times. To my surprise the phones are not staffed 24/7 despite the scheme being advertised as such. On one of my early hires I had to return a bike using by locking it to a hire point manually as the rack was full. The procedure dictates that you call the company to end the hire over the phone and until then you’re responsible for the bike. I’m sure you can imagine that I was pretty stressed when I wasn’t able to reach anyone.
Both times I spoke with the team they seemed to be quite encouraging and well meaning. In one call it was suggested that the scheme hasn’t been designed for people to mostly use the free time for journeys which is a shame as this is how I’ve used the scheme in other cities.
New pricing seems to encourage members to take the bike away for an entire day – perhaps in the morning to commute to work and keep it at your workplace throughout the day. To me, this seems at odds with the public nature of the bike scheme – no point having the bikes locked up and unavailable for hire when then could be used by other members.
I understand that the scheme is underused. In the first two years of operation only 1500 hires here recorded. When you look at the start up costs of around £155k that works out to be about £100 per trip. Of course, that figure will fall as more and more people use them. The media seem keen on this metric so short but frequent usage (like my own) can only help the performance figures.
By trade I work with continues improvement and performance managing techniques every day so I often see the world through a different lens; I see what could be, rather than what is a lot of the time.
I’m concerned that the bikes are seen as an expensive but underused ‘embracement’ in the town and won’t see any further investment. I had hoped in using the scheme frequently and proactively reporting defects so the bikes are always in perfect condition would help make the case for the bikes. Every ride reduces ‘cost per bike’ metric often quoted. And keeping the bikes in tip-top condition makes them attractive to residents and visitors alike.
It would be wrong for me to say that the scheme could be improved if we just spend a little more money on it. That's not the fix the scheme needs in these austere times.
Three things I think would vastly improve the scheme:
Retrofit - the old bicycles with the new docking system to keep our town and bicycles looking tidy
Empower users – to redistribute bicycles between stations. Offer a reward (free credit maybe) for ferrying bikes from busy to empty stations. Or to take bikes to a local bike shop for repair when needed.
Mobile app – to review hires, get lock combination codes and report defects on the move.
I’m writing this as I recently shared this story with the local newspaper. Initially I was quite critical of the company running the scheme but by the time I sat down with the paper my hopes were to highlight that the scheme is very expensive if no one uses the bikes, to encourage people to take an interest in this local resource and to highlight some concerns before the busy summer season.
The article, Bike Scheme ‘Useless’, was not quite what I would have liked. I don’t recall branding the scheme as such but it is typical of something I might say (albeit with a lot less gravity than a single word pull-quote!). In fairness, the response from Hour Bike managing director was largely fair. £1 for 23 rides is phenomenal value to the end user – even if the true cost behind the scenes is much higher.
My only worry is that I’m still not sure if a tourist can actually rent a bicycle for a day or half-day out with office hours – such as at the weekend. And who do you can if you have a mechanical breakdown many miles outside town after the phone lines close?
We all need to work together: the council needs to market the scheme better and the hire company can make some simple fixes and improvement but above all, we – residents and visitors – need to start using the scheme en masse. After all, it is a very expensive orange luxury if we don’t!
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