London’s fleet of hire bikes is seeing an alarming fall in popularity – but the company that runs it, Serco, is set to pick up a two-year contract extension.
Transport for London has disclosed that 514,000 journeys were made in November 2013, a drop of 29% from the November 2012 figure (727,000). The record month was August 2012, when 1.16m journeys were made.
TfL publicly attributes the peak, and the subsequent fall-off, to the 2012 Olympics and Jubilee. However, critics have pointed to the doubling of charges in January 2013, with a day’s access rising from £1 to £2, and a year’s pass from £45 to £90. An internal TfL report corroborates this:
“There has been a significant increase in those saying they will not renew their membership when it runs out, mainly due to cost reasons and availability of bicycles and docking points”.
Assembly Member Darren Johnson, from the Green Party, said:
“TfL should be encouraging the greatest possible use of the scheme by keeping user fees affordable instead of doubling them. It may be that the drop in cycle hire usage reflects a dip in cycling more broadly across London but the Mayor can address both problems by working with TfL to address cyclists’ legitimate safety concerns and encouraging the uptake of cycling in our city, including on hire bikes.”
A spokesman for Boris Johnson denied that safety was a factor. “We are encouraged that, contrary to claims that cycling is falling in the wake of the recent tragic deaths, we have seen no evidence of this from the hire figures for November. The year-on-year fall in this month was less than the year-on-year fall for September.”
Despite the bad news, Serco, the outsourcing specialist which runs the scheme, is expected to be awarded a two-year extension. Its current contract runs until 2015; TfL is now recommending that it continues to 2017. Serco was criticised earlier in the year for failing to manage demand at docking stations, with potential hirers finding docks empty when they wanted to take a bike, or full when they wanted to return one.
