Cycle Hire Stats

[yorkshiregoth]

For those who may be interested:



Top ten used docking stations;

· Hop Exchange, The Borough

· Wardour Street, Soho

· Soho Square , Soho

· Holborn Circus, Holborn

· Bankside Mix, Bankside

· William IV Street, Strand

· Drury Lane, Covent Garden

· Hyde Park Corner, Hyde Park

· Finsbury Circus, Liverpool Street

· Brushfield Street, Liverpool Street



· 143,803 cycle trips made by 37,275 Members to date

Avg trip duration 17 mins

 

[zimzum42]

great stuff!

 

[CharlieB]

Went past the Soho Square point 3x yesterday trying to park a Boris bike, and it was full every time.

 

[rich p]

Is there a van that redistributes them to empty docks?

 

[zimzum42]

Is there a van that redistributes them to empty docks?

yup - it's a little electric tractor unit pulling a trailer with 15 or so bikes on...

 

[zimzum42]

 

[dellzeqq]

In one sense the stats don't really matter. The thing had to be tried, and, despite my doubts about the bikes, it's fair to say that TfL who had been working on this since 2006 had done their research, predicted a market, and, on that basis, we, as GLA precept payers were bound to follow through.

The great thing about the system is that it's adaptable. If hiring points in the west of the zone are continually 'selling out' then you can put more hiring points in and even think about extending the scheme westwards. Similarly, if there was a hiring point that didn't see any traffic, you could uproot it and move it elsewhere (I presume that the software on the stands could be easily adapted.

So, time will tell. My present optimism may be confounded by mass thievery (although the one advantage of these bikes is that you'd be pretty perverse to want to nick one, when there are many thousands of other, better bikes chained to railings and stands all over London). 175,000 hirings may be a lot or it may be a little - we can only judge by the number we see in motion and the smiles on the faces of the people riding them. It isn't a vast number by comparison with trips on the Underground (about 1.2 bn annually), but, then again, it's difficult to see the upward limit for the cycle hire scheme, and it may take us years to work it out.

The original plan was to go city wide. I still think that there's considerable potential in suburban centres. Getting round Croydon or Sutton slowly by bike makes a great deal of sense (whatever your views of Croydon or Sutton...)

One question - what would you say was the percentage of Cycle Hire customers wearing helmets? My take is less than 10%

 

[Bromptonaut]

Agree with Simon - almost no helmets. It would require a massivley greater faith in both their efficacy and the probability of a head injury accident in road cycling to persuade me to carry a hat about. Don't know if there have been any accidents yet but my money would be on the first KSI being an LGV crush rather than a fall onto the bonce.

I find close passes to be much more of a problem than on the Brommy. Mainly down to more passes on account of slow cruise speed rather than agression etc.

 

[CopperBrompton]

The bikes are tough beasts:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyl...ey-puts-the-Boris-bike-through-its-paces.html