Friday, August 13, 2010

Boris Bikes in London

There is no shortage of information on London’s Bike-Sharing scheme.  The media and bloggers have given it a warm welcome, and most users are happy, despite a number of avoidable teething problems. Perhaps the schemes operators are surprised by the enthusiasm for the scheme, with many bloggers, and our reporter Ian Perry experiencing problems contacting their customer service representatives – and when his calls are answered, the person is unable to assist us, instead promising to have someone call us back...  but no one does. Daily use of each bicycle is rising, and will probably break the two uses a day mark before casual users are able to join the scheme, at the terminals in the street, in September 2010. Currently all users have to subscribe in advance online.  TfL is supplying excellent information on the system – which shows them to be having problems with bicycle redistribution.  Docking stations around the stations are empty at the time of writing (midday), but the historical graphs show that they fill up in the evening and overnight, with the electric redistribution vehicles struggling to cope.  For a live update of available bikes click on the link here.