Glasgow intends to open city-wide bike hire scheme

What about all those people who don't have a mobile (telephone)?

Oh dear, still a bit naieve in making the assumption that all bike hire schemes fit all bike hire needs. Glasgow, and most cities actually need 2 schemes, to cover 3 basic hire needs. I'm gobsmacked by the figure of £1.3m for the capital costs though. The bikes used by the 3 major bike sharing schemes in Germany, (including one system using bikes produced in Kilmarnock but sold mainly in Germany) can cost under €1500 - so 400 bikes = €600,000 plus annual servicing = €200,000, and since this type of bike requires no fixed docking station, so is the rest all admin and software costs?

The hire requirements are grab & go - what the London scheme was planned to do, where bikes circulate and the hire is free for a short period to keep bikes available around the city, then the OV-Fiets model of hire for the day, and return to the same place, mainly for commuters, making regular trips from the same places, and very successful in the Netherlands, 58 sites are set to open in the UK with Abellio operated train services. Finally there is long-term hire of a fully serviced bike, usually a folding bike and the equivalent of the Cycle to Work scheme without the attached hassles of maintaining it and replacing it when it wears out.

I've one package in mind that would cost about £75K to set up a pilot with 40 bikes, and could be part funded by sponsors, with existing examples in England that have become financially sustainable in under a year (ie income covers running costs). This would be a bike that you hire for a day or longer, and could cost as little as £2.50/day. The system currently being delivered in the UK was initially delivered by a public transport operator - Stagecoach, in London, many months before the Barclays scheme got started.

One of the German operations is privately operated, the other two are subsidiaries of Die Bahn, directly or with local administrations. The commercial system has been operating since 2006 and now runs in 9 other European countries, funding from both the user payments and from branding the bikes. Copenhagen has run free bikes for 18 years funded by sale of the bike branding, which paid the running costs. Bikes like these which do not require a hard wired docking station can have a small number introduced and then grown - and even get special events serviced by bringing in a load of extra bikes - this is happening for the Birmingham Cycle conference later this week where cycles bound for the Czech Republic will be stopping off in Birmingham en route.

True - now also seeing free bike repair clinics just outside Glasgow Green on a regular basis

I've changed my route to head from EK to Newton first, then just over 10 miles along the Clyde Walkway and I'm very pleased to see more and more cyclists of all ability levels

It's getting beautiful people

So... Boris Bikes, Scouse Cycles...

... I'm claiming copyright on the term 'Weegie Wheels' for this one...

Hope it does work out. Currently Glasgow just does not have an infrastructure that is cycle friendly within the city. Even with the new velodrome there seems to be no movement towards developing something to encourage commuting by bicycle which cycle hire schemes seem to be pitched at (I may be wrong in my perception here). So unless the docking stations are going to be scattered round Kelvingrove or Glasgow Green with easy accesss to the Clyde Canal sadly see it being an epic fail.

Glasgow isn't the first in Scotland. Dumfries has been doing it for a few years. Not sure about the stats though.

Quote:

... presumably allowing users time to get up all those hills.

Aye, and there's the rub.

Unless riders want to tootle from Glasgow Green to the SECC and back - or take their lives in their hands and head along Paisley Road West - then they're gonna hafta climb some hills