"Stagecoach Group Chief Executive Brian Souter today launched the new
initiative at London Waterloo station along with Will Butler-Adams, Managing
Director of Brompton Bicycle, passengers taking part in the trial and Dave
Holladay of CTC...
"Passengers will be able to hire the South West Trains' branded Brompton
bicycles from our Lost Property Office at Waterloo station...

Full article at:

http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/SWT...bikescheme.htm

I wonder if bystanders shouted that they'd prefer Oyster PAYG...

Paul S

In message , at 13:31:26 on
Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Paul Scott remarked:
"Passengers will be able to hire the South West Trains' branded Brompton
bicycles from our Lost Property Office at Waterloo station...

I wonder what guarantees the hirers will have to make. I note that a
recent similar scheme in Paris resulted in 7,800 bikes being stolen and
a further 11,600 being 'vandalised' from a pool of only 20,000.

(Yes that's just 600 unscathed)

The promoters are apparently "struggling to fund the scheme" and said
"we underestimated the degree of damage [the bikes] would suffer".
--
Roland Perry

On 12 Feb, 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 13:31:26 on
Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Paul Scott remarked:

"Passengers will be able to hire the South West Trains' branded Brompton
bicycles from our Lost Property Office at Waterloo station...

I wonder what guarantees the hirers will have to make. I note that a
recent similar scheme in Paris resulted in 7,800 bikes being stolen and
a further 11,600 being 'vandalised' from a pool of only 20,000.

(Yes that's just 600 unscathed)

The promoters are apparently "struggling to fund the scheme" and said
"we underestimated the degree of damage [the bikes] would suffer".


Was that a completely free hire scheme? I'd need to know more details
about both it and how SWT's scheme might work post-trial to make
comparisons. Note that the three month trial appears to only be open
to SWT season ticket holders.

With regards to the underlying point, any prospective city cycle hire
scheme does of course need to take full account of the realities when
it comes to planning how the scheme will work.

I wonder how well an alternative idea would go down - that of SWT
arranging to store the folding bikes of season-ticket holding
commuters at Waterloo for collection and drop-off that are owned by
those commuters?

In message
, at
07:15:10 on Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Mizter T remarked:
I wonder what guarantees the hirers will have to make. I note that a
recent similar scheme in Paris resulted in 7,800 bikes being stolen and
a further 11,600 being 'vandalised' from a pool of only 20,000.

(Yes that's just 600 unscathed)

The promoters are apparently "struggling to fund the scheme" and said
"we underestimated the degree of damage [the bikes] would suffer".

Was that a completely free hire scheme?

Velib Bikes. A Euro a day.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 13:31:26 on
Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Paul Scott remarked:
"Passengers will be able to hire the South West Trains' branded Brompton
bicycles from our Lost Property Office at Waterloo station...

I wonder what guarantees the hirers will have to make. I note that a
recent similar scheme in Paris resulted in 7,800 bikes being stolen and
a further 11,600 being 'vandalised' from a pool of only 20,000.

(Yes that's just 600 unscathed)

The promoters are apparently "struggling to fund the scheme" and said
"we underestimated the degree of damage [the bikes] would suffer".

All they needed to do was check up on the statistics for supermarket
trolleys.

--

Brian

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 13:31:26 on
Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Paul Scott remarked:
"Passengers will be able to hire the South West Trains' branded Brompton
bicycles from our Lost Property Office at Waterloo station...
I wonder what guarantees the hirers will have to make. I note that a
recent similar scheme in Paris resulted in 7,800 bikes being stolen and
a further 11,600 being 'vandalised' from a pool of only 20,000.

(Yes that's just 600 unscathed)

Most of the 'stolen' ones were quickly found and recovered. Of course,
this raises the admin costs, but not as much as having to replace bikes
would do.

The promoters are apparently "struggling to fund the scheme" and said
"we underestimated the degree of damage [the bikes] would suffer".

I hear the design of the London bikes will be as vandal-resistant as
practicable.

Colin McKenzie

--
No-one has ever proved that cycle helmets make cycling any safer at the
population level, and anyway cycling is about as safe per mile as walking.
Make an informed choice - visit www.cyclehelmets.org.

On 12 Feb, 13:31, "Paul Scott" wrote:
"Stagecoach Group Chief Executive Brian Souter today launched the new
initiative at London Waterloo station along with Will Butler-Adams, Managing
Director of Brompton Bicycle, passengers taking part in the trial and Dave
Holladay of CTC...
"Passengers will be able to hire the South West Trains' branded Brompton
bicycles from our Lost Property Office at Waterloo station...

....that have previously been handed in as being lost property? ;-)

Brompton only do folding up bicycles so this is what SWT will offering
- I guess it makes sense in that they'll take up less space when being
stored at Waterloo.

The blurb is lacking in any specifics - how many bikes will there be,
can one/ will one have to reserve a bike etc - it'd be annoying to
plan on using a bike only to find on arrival at Waterloo that none
were available (indeed the availability or otherwise could impact on
one's choice of ticket - e.g. plain-vanilla return or Travelcard).
They're being offered free for the three month trial period to season
ticket holders - is the expectation that season ticket holders would
use them every day?

As well as these issues, another important element in cycle hire
schemes is how well the bikes are maintained - they don't need to be
perfect, but they do need to be of a reasonable standard, and fairly
clean to boot!

Good luck to them, we'll see how it pans out over time.


Full article at:

http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/SWT...bikescheme.htm

I wonder if bystanders shouted that they'd prefer Oyster PAYG...


Paul C's summary of the latest TfL board meeting suggests that SWT
have come around to Oyster PAYG. As with the whole roll-out of Oyster
PAYG across London's railways, I'll only truly believe it when I can
touch it! It does appear to be inching ahead though...

Mizter T wrote:

Brompton only do folding up bicycles so this is what SWT will offering
- I guess it makes sense in that they'll take up less space when being
stored at Waterloo.

It brings the width, height and length of a single bike closer to each
parity, but I'm not convinced it reduces the floor area taken up by a fleet
of bikes.

On 12 Feb, 15:00, "John Rowland"
wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

Brompton only do folding up bicycles so this is what SWT will offering
- I guess it makes sense in that they'll take up less space when being
stored at Waterloo.

It brings the width, height and length of a single bike closer to each
parity, but I'm not convinced it reduces the floor area taken up by a fleet
of bikes.

Perhaps not.

The other advantage of offering Brompton fold-up bikes is that the
users can fold them up and take them into their workplace when they
get there, thus cutting the risk and worries about theft of bikes that
are locked up outside.

"[snip]
"Passengers will be able to hire the South West Trains' branded
Brompton bicycles from our Lost Property Office at Waterloo
station...

Full article at:

http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/SWT...bikescheme.htm

This is, I presume, a response to the increasingly vocal complaints
from cyclists now unable to take bikes on the train.

Jeremy Parker