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The information being considered on this agenda falls within the description of exempt information and is likely to be considered in private.
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http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/meetings/id/47969/b_agenda_-_25082015
Hmmm
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
"Public Bike Hire Scheme"
(102 posts)- Started 8 years ago by chdot
- Latest reply from toomanybikes
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Posted 8 years ago #
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Can only hope it is private because JC Decaux are visiting and proposing what they've done in Paris and Dublin.
If it really is just the presentation of a report... eh :/
Posted 8 years ago # -
A Councillor has said to me:
For info, i am lobbying hard - and indeed things are progressing- to do my part in bringing a Boris bike style public bike hire scheme to the city. Many hurdles remain but things seem on the right track. I think this would be good way to get people on their bike or at least have a taste of cycling. I did some fact finding on a recent trip to London to see the positives and negatives of their scheme.
So we may yet see something beyond the Abellio/Scotrail Bike & Go scheme.
Robert
Posted 8 years ago # -
The main negative of a point to point system appears to be the cost of transporting bikes to overcome imbalances in flow. The Paris scheme incentivises docking at nearly empty stations with hire credit.
Bike and Go has its place but is a totally different beast. The flat fare rental is far cheaper than a Velib system if leaving the docking 'network' but really it is only aimed at for visitors and commuters using trains. It's not for locals, and nor will it scale well.
Posted 8 years ago # -
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@LAHinds: @CyclingEdin @Edinburgh_CC @AndrewDBurns @SpokesLothian the report includes commercial information
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I'm sure, but unless there is a public version showing what is proposed it's hard to helpfully lobby and 'welcome' - or suggest improvements.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I've be happy to pop out at lunchtimes and generate hire credit by ferrying bikes up the hill to the locking-station on the castle esplanade.
Perhaps JCDecaux will supply bicycles without mudguards or lights and with U-brakes to match their new wind/rain-compatible bus shelters.
Posted 8 years ago # -
It would equally be an option for a private site to initiate a bike hire scheme, and I have in mind either one of the larger sites in the Edinburgh Park/Gyle/Gogar area or a consortium of such journey generators.
I'm aware that many who work at RBS or the Gyle use the Airport P&R site and walk or get a tram for 1-2 stops because there is no staff parking on site and equally the journey distances to shops (Maybury/Gyle) and transport nodes (Tram/Edinburgh Park/South Gyle(Gogar)- for Fife/Airport - Fife bus services from Inverkeithing &c would make a bike scheme attractive, and potentially funded/managed without any need for Council input.
I'm aware of schemes with conventional bikes outside the UK (Volvo Gotheburg / Google Campus) and leisure schemes (Center Parcs), plus UK "closed" schemes with Brompton Hire (GSK - Brentford & University of Greenwich) the former justified by the fact that for every employee not requiring a car parking space they have a nett gain of £9000/year in land and other cost savings, and the latter through a massive improvement in the level of service for inter-site transport, compared to the costs of providing a frequent, minibus-based service which could easily cost the University a 7 figure sum annually, and still not deliver for every individual need.
So prime candidates for a Brompton Hire point or bike hire scheme might be Heriot Watt campus or RBS. Anyone offer contacts for this?
In both cases the cost of putting wheels on the ground is in the region of £1500-£2500*/bike, using a basic scheme (*using the smallest 8-bike Brompton Dock and just hiring out 8 bikes from it). The Glasgow & Stirling schemes can be set up with minimal works - the bikes contain the hire point system - so a trial operation can be delivered simply by placing the bikes in existing cycle parking locations, as has been done in Glasgow. I believe that a small reserve pool of bikes is being built up to do such demonstration projects, and bike hire has been set-up and operated for 2 days at 2 of the Landon Cycle City conferences.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Bounce
Posted 8 years ago # -
Edinburgh University must pay Lothian Buses quite a bit for its shuttle bus service. A bicycle shuttle service could be really cool. Nice idea.
Posted 8 years ago # -
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To request a further report be brought to the Committee as soon as possible, and no later than October 2015, detailing the JC Decaux proposal and recommending a decision
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p38
Scheme proposal from before -
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/meetings/id/46500/item_74b_-_public_bike_hire_scheme.
Posted 8 years ago # -
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Growing patronage
Lothian Buses has achieved an upward trend in patronage in recent years and the intention of the Directors is to continue this trend. Edinburgh Trams will also continue to grow patronage in-line with, or ahead of original projections. Fluctuations can occur in the short term but over a period of years, with ongoing network developments, the deployment of targeted campaigns and a commitment to achieving high customer satisfaction ratings, both Lothian Buses and Edinburgh Tram can benefit from and contribute to an increasing appetite for public transport. Edinburgh Tram’s sales and marketing activities will continue to focus on Edinburgh Airport, but also on Ingliston Park & Ride, West Edinburgh Retail/Business/Further Education sites as well as integration with the existing Lothian Buses network.
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p 57
Of course it would be nice to think that efforts to get more people to use PT would be integrated with attempts to get more people to cycle - esp in EP/Gyle/RBS area.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Grief!
Reading P38 and the March 2015 report I'm concerned to gain the impression that it seems to assume they simply hand the deal to Decaux, which surely cannot be right for a public contract - even if it is delivered by 'payment' in kind of giving JCD more outdoor media sites, a horse trading detail which created a hiatus when Dublin was uncomfortable with the extent of on street advertising poster sites that were set as the tariff for delivering the bike scheme.
The report from March 2015 is also rather dated in the costings and a check on current figures can reveals some substantial savings if alternative systems are considered -
Glasgow put Nextbike bikes out at c.£1500/bike including set-up. The bikes contain the hire system and subscribers (discount membership is available for those in Edinburgh who belong to the City Car Club) can use a mobile phone, SMS, an app (iphone & android), and a smart card (using Myfare - the same system as Scottish Concession Cards, SPT Bramble and most Car Clubs). The Glasgow tariff has been nicely pitched, so that many commuters will hire the bike all day as it is cheaper than a taxi to work, and it saves the hassle of relocating bikes. As noted Google and Volvo run schemes for their campus sites. With an employee parking space worth £2000-£3000/yr, giving them a bike hire deal might be a balancing benefit in kind, although how that is dressed up may need to be considered for tax purposes (is it for example the equivalent of a free company minibus collecting staff from the station or local residential areas?)
Worth noting here that there are well developed Spanish systems, the UK's Hourbike, and the German competitor for Nextbike Call-a-Bike operated by DB-German Railways (running by 2001 and predating many of the other schemes by around a decade), all offering area-wide hire systems, and Abellio's Bike&Go which could be integrated with or adapted to match the system needed.
Current Brompton Hire cost to put in a basic 8-bike automated unit c.4600/bike BUT for a system with bikes out on long term hire this reduces substantially (an 8 bike unit can easily be hiring out 16 bikes (£2300/bike) if they are used by commuters taking bikes for a week or more at a time) It also reduces if the 8 bay (basic) unit has additional 4 bays or more modules added. An internal company scheme can also be operated without the automated hire point (just the storage lockers, and a reception hand-out system without the electronics).
Both examples fit with organisations that have distributed sites and run shuttle bus services between them (NHS, Universities plus big groups such as Standard Life) often they spend 6 or even 7 figure sums on a private minibus service, to maintain as near to an 'on-demand link between sites as possible. The University of Greenwich instead has put Brompton Hire bikes available - free to use during the working week - to make those local trips in place of an intensive and costly minibus service - both running well below capacity, and smashing away any semblance of reducing carbon footprint.
Privately funded
Instead of Edinburgh Council there is the model of a large employer or employment site(s) actually setting this up, initially for employees and visitors to the site(s) or area(s) and growing out into a public system which is self funding (as Nextbike claim to deliver in 2-4 years from their schemes). Basically the bikes in most cities, carrying advertising brings in around £25-£30 per bike per month but can include premium campaigns such as the run in Berlin with GE, when the bike dynamo powered a USB socket on the handlebars, for phone charging as you rode along (USB charging widgits can be fitted to most bikes with a dynamo often replacing the cap in a threadless headset)
A new division of Transport for Edinburgh
It could even be an arms length operation as part of Transport for Edinburgh, as the Belgian transport operation (TEC) did in 2009, offering bus pass users a package of bus, car club and bike hire (at €13/month for a folding Strida in TEC colours to match their buses - so bus drivers waved at cyclists riding TEC bikes!)
I'd love to do some work on this with folk in organisations that can deliver, and am aware that RBS, and other large employers are developing a campaigns to get more cycle use for many of their big sites - for the purely pragmatic reason that it saves a small fortune in providing for employees' cars (current 'worth' per space (per employee) for Edinburgh park/West Flank £3000+/year? - pays for a lot of cycling!).
Posted 8 years ago # -
From Adam McVey:
@adamrmcvey: Today's transport committee decided to go out to tender for a new city bike hire scheme. Big step forward in delivering it!
Posted 8 years ago # -
Interesting
There remains the option not to actually spend any public money on this as I reckon that a bike hire scheme could be set up without the Council needing to do any more than licence the use of street parking space, if the operator wanted to use the streets and not private land connected to the streets.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I'm concerned to gain the impression that it seems to assume they simply hand the deal to Decaux
I suspect the tender will now be written in a way that only Decaux's system will fulfil the remit. Not necessarily a bad thing - their system is good and once you have a smartcard hiring is quick.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"I reckon that a bike hire scheme could be set up without the Council needing to do any more than licence the use of street parking space"
Yes but presumably user costs would be higher.
Ken Bikes got a lot of money from Barclays and now Santander, but also cost TfL cash(?)
Posted 8 years ago # -
Meanwhile in London:
Posted 8 years ago # -
@stickman Interesting that the tender makes no mention of the hire point infrastructure, which was cripplingly expensive and time consuming to deliver. The bixi system is a lot less expensive to install than the London scheme, but still requires docking stations, and most modern systems don't need anything as complex/substantial as the detail delivered for the London Scheme.
So does the exiting bixi deal exclude the options of change. If so that might bring options of a challenge as this immediately puts a bias on any tendering. I suspect Edinburgh's choice to go to tender rather than just ask Decaux to give a price has similar reasoning (it would be challenged if they did not use proper OJEU process for this purchase)
Posted 8 years ago # -
The rent out your own bike thread reminded me of this....
Casual bike users want bikes that adjust in minutes to their size, don't destroy their clothes and have lights, kick stand and rack.
We all know about Boris Bikes etc but here's how the PB is customised in different cities.http://www.velobility.net/project-experience/
Interesting to see that the Paper Bike has yet to be fleet hired in Scotland but has appeared in several locations in Europe.
City of Mainz in Germany has 960.
http://www.velobility.net/portfolio_page/rental-bicycles-for-the-city-of-mainz/Posted 8 years ago # -
"Today's transport committee decided to go out to tender for a new city bike hire scheme. Big step forward in delivering it!"
Has there been any update on the tendering?
Saw impressive figures from bike schemes back home in the Irish news today. Would be nice to see something similar here in Edinburgh!
Posted 8 years ago # -
Edinburgh as timid as ever, but even successful ones have funding problems -
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It costs almost €2 million to operate the scheme every year and this cost is met by a combination of subscriber annual memberships, short term memberships, journey usage fees and corporate sponsorship of the scheme as ‘Coca-Cola Zero dublinbikes’.
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Posted 8 years ago # -
@chdot: Seems they are tackling the funding shortfall in Dublin by upping the annual subscription!
A few thoughts after a recent trip to Dublin (verbal diarrhea perhaps....)
Every time I go home to Dublin I am always shocked (in a positive way) by the number of cyclists out and about - particularly given the limited cycle-specific infrastructure. As a casual observer I notice that there are more and more people cycling. When I left Dublin - the public bike hire scheme was still in its infancy and cycling was still a relatively fringe mode of transport. But I see a direct correlation between the burgeoning popularity of cycling as a mode of transport in Dublin and the bike hire scheme. People who never cycled when I left now cycle to the shops, cycle to the beach, cycle around town etc...Keeping track of the POP thread - I can't help but think that the manifesto (which I agree with whole-heartedly) is very broad and wide-ranging. Perhaps focusing on a single issue might yield more immediate results. A public bike hire scheme could be such an issue! The public bike hire scheme in Dublin acted as a catalyst for the normalisation of cycling as a mode of transport. More people cycling in turn means there is more leverage for securing a share of the budget for cycling infrastructure!
What are people's thoughts about a "proper" bike hire scheme in Edinburgh (ignoring Abellio's anaemic attempts)?
Is there any appetite to lobby for this to be expedited?
Is there any value in lobbying or to rather wait for the cogs of the council to slowly crunch through the processes?
Posted 7 years ago # -
I'd agree that a decent bike hire system helps because it makes everyone "cyclists" - you get folk cycling in their normal clothes just to get from Point A to Point B quicker than if they walked and suddenly cyclists are no longer an out group of fluoro jacketed helmet wearers.
Lobbying may help, but I get the impression that the (current) council want to do this, but need to find the money from somewhere. Was there a deal struck with JCDecaux linked to all the new bus stops? (JCDecaux run Velib in Paris.)
Posted 7 years ago # -
A brief perusal of Public Contracts Scotland suggests to me this wasn't tendered after last March's general meeting.
Did find Leith Programme stage 4,
http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=MAR236827Posted 7 years ago # -
@ivangrozni, I'm sure the bike scheme helps.
However, perhaps there are other factors at work:
- Relatively youthful population more likely to cycle (London also has this, and Cambridge).
- Ireland badly hit in global financial crisis, maybe a money saving agenda for some folk?
- Dublin quite flat (see Cambridge, etc.)Posted 7 years ago # -
Back in Belfast for the first time in five years this week, and discovered there's now a Belfast Bikes scheme in place - not something I would have seen coming when I left in 2009! Also genuine efforts seem to be being made at cycle infra - not all of it good or joined-up, but there appears to be some willing. Even some protected bike lanes in addition to the old stretch along the Ormeau Embankment. (Plus the city centre has continued to morph into an actively pleasant environment for walking - Donegall Place isn't pedestrianized but it is now arranged so as to slalom the buses / taxi along a single lane, with more space for people to promenade / sit out in the sun - and indeed, people were doing just that on Monday afternoon.
Before: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Donegall_Place,_Belfast_-_geograph.org.uk_-_734881.jpg
After: https://goo.gl/maps/Rg3guUh3Nbo
So, not perfect but much better!Now if someone would turn the tinny, intrusive sound off on the horrible videoscreen in the grounds of City Hall...)
Posted 7 years ago # -
http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/pilot-edinburgh-cycle-hire-scheme-to-be-launched-1-4392980
A pilot for Edinburgh’s long-awaited cycle hire scheme is to be launched this year.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Details in the Transport Committee papers here:
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/meetings/meeting/4155/transport_and_environment_committee
Edit: no, they're not!
Posted 7 years ago # -
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Mr Lowder told the Policy Priorities for Transport conference that Edinburgh could eventually have five or six schemes rather than a single operation like in London.
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Mmm, though I think the proposed scheme is more like the 'any user' ones in other cities, and the existing ones were set up for niche interests because Edinburgh failed to actually get a bigger scheme started.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Stickman - there is a tiny mention. 50 bike pilot for a year, £150,000 funding. Supplier is Nextbike, which provide the Glasgow scheme.
Not quite sure what they will learn from this - the number of bikes and docking locations is probably too small to be useful for many people, which will impact on usage.
I've used the Glasgow Nextbikes. They aren't bad, but the huge weight and 3-speed shimano hub gearing isn't really suited to a hilly place like Edinburgh.
Posted 7 years ago #
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