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TfL Survey about rental bikes for public use



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 19th 07, 01:59 AM posted to uk.rec.cycling
Paul Murphy
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Posts: 273
Default TfL Survey about rental bikes for public use

I was interviewed at Victoria Railway Station today for market research
about plans to provide bicycles for hire around the capital. Supposedly for
TfL (although the interviewer was wearing a Network Rail pass - the
organisation who manage this station), the questions were quite wide ranging
and even included one to gauge the popularity of providing power assisted
bikes to supplement (or was it instead of....) more ordinary rental bikes.
The picture shown looked a bit like the bikes being used in the Parisian
scheme.

My selfish concern was that when I do travel into London by train, I usually
rely on the Metrolink or busses because they're included in the cost of my
travelcard (which isn't much more expensive than a London return ticket). I
cant help thinking that perhaps such a scheme might be better suited to a
built up area where there aren't already so many public transport options
available.....

Paul


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  #2  
Old December 19th 07, 08:24 AM posted to uk.rec.cycling
vernon[_2_]
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Posts: 258
Default TfL Survey about rental bikes for public use


"Paul Murphy" wrote in message
...

My selfish concern was that when I do travel into London by train, I
usually rely on the Metrolink or busses because they're included in the
cost of my travelcard (which isn't much more expensive than a London
return ticket). I cant help thinking that perhaps such a scheme might be
better suited to a built up area where there aren't already so many public
transport options available.....

Paul

I'd be quite happy to pay for the hire of a bike rather use the tube when I
visit London. I find the tube rather hot and sweaty especially in the
summer months and I'm not a confident user of the bus system i.e. I haven't
a clue which bus to catch or where to get off. I anticipate that the
charges would be quite low especially for short duration rides and would be
a 'surcharge' that I'd be prepared to pay.


  #3  
Old December 19th 07, 09:59 AM posted to uk.rec.cycling
Peter Clinch
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Posts: 4,852
Default TfL Survey about rental bikes for public use

vernon wrote:

I'm not a confident user of the bus system i.e. I haven't
a clue which bus to catch or where to get off.


Glad it's not just me (and I'm from Bexley, so my general London
geography wasn't /that/ bad. I just see a bus with, say "Highgate" and
really don't know if it's where I'm wanting, and I note it's not going
that fast either, and generally walk if it's less then southern rail
termini to northern rail termini.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
  #4  
Old December 19th 07, 11:35 AM posted to uk.rec.cycling
elyob
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 551
Default TfL Survey about rental bikes for public use

On 19 Dec, 00:59, "Paul Murphy"
wrote:
I was interviewed at Victoria Railway Station today for market research
about plans to provide bicycles for hire around the capital. Supposedly for
TfL (although the interviewer was wearing a Network Rail pass - the
organisation who manage this station), the questions were quite wide ranging
and even included one to gauge the popularity of providing power assisted
bikes to supplement (or was it instead of....) more ordinary rental bikes.
The picture shown looked a bit like the bikes being used in the Parisian
scheme.

My selfish concern was that when I do travel into London by train, I usually
rely on the Metrolink or busses because they're included in the cost of my
travelcard (which isn't much more expensive than a London return ticket). I
cant help thinking that perhaps such a scheme might be better suited to a
built up area where there aren't already so many public transport options
available.....

Paul


I can't see it working for the majority of Londoners, where exactly
are they going to put these bikes? At Waterloo there isn't enough room
for people's own bikes, so they reduced the space during building
works. Also, nice, everyone turns up at a mainline station .. i'd be
guessing they'd all be gone pretty sharpish. The majority og commuters
are coming into London.

Where it could work, would be in touristy areas. A bike park in Hyde
Park, another in Green Park etc etc. However, not many tourists will
have the balls to get onto London's roads as is. I know quite a few
people who refuse to navigate London's roads on bike, and some don't
seem like the scaredycat type.

Anyway, I think it's a lovely dream, just not really going to become a
useful addition to sustainable transport in reality. Now, give me a
bigger discount on my Brompton and now you're talking ...

(80% sure I won't have my bikescheme through by Christmas )
  #5  
Old December 19th 07, 12:41 PM posted to uk.rec.cycling
Paul Murphy
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 273
Default TfL Survey about rental bikes for public use

"elyob" wrote in message
...
snip re rental bike scheme for London
I can't see it working for the majority of Londoners, where exactly
are they going to put these bikes? At Waterloo there isn't enough room
for people's own bikes, so they reduced the space during building
works. Also, nice, everyone turns up at a mainline station .. i'd be
guessing they'd all be gone pretty sharpish. The majority og commuters
are coming into London.


As for where they'd put the bikes and stands, one of the questions asked by
the interviewer was how far I'd be prepared to walk in London to find one of
these bikes, with a range of possible distance answers. When space is at a
premium, perhaps they may be considering a multilayered approach, the
bicycle equivalent of a hoist type multi-storey car park.... As for everyone
turning up at once, yes that will happen (although of course only a certain
percentage will take the bike option). If there are places other than the
train stations to return the bikes, they'll naturally migrate away from the
train stations during the day. I'd imagine most would come back again with
the flow of people in the evening though (unless it rains - also a topic in
the survey...).

Where it could work, would be in touristy areas. A bike park in Hyde
Park, another in Green Park etc etc. However, not many tourists will
have the balls to get onto London's roads as is. I know quite a few
people who refuse to navigate London's roads on bike, and some don't
seem like the scaredycat type.


I know what you mean about cycling in London, the GPS on my phone (that
mounts on my bike handlebars) often doesn't work well among the tall
buildings and the last thing I want is to be unsure of where I need to go
with traffic all around me on busy roads.

Anyway, I think it's a lovely dream, just not really going to become a
useful addition to sustainable transport in reality. Now, give me a
bigger discount on my Brompton and now you're talking ...

(80% sure I won't have my bikescheme through by Christmas )


You never know, those little folding bikes are easier to fit into sleighs
:-)

Paul


  #6  
Old December 20th 07, 07:51 PM posted to uk.rec.cycling
Jeremy Parker
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 522
Default TfL Survey about rental bikes for public use


"Paul Murphy" wrote in message
...
I was interviewed at Victoria Railway Station today for market
research about plans to provide bicycles for hire around the
capital.


[snip]

Well, supposedly it works in Paris, much to my surprise.

Of course, there already is a scheme in London, OyBike, although even
Ken Livingstone doesn't seem to have heard of it.

One lesson from OyBike vs. Velib, I think, is that you have to
provide "universal coverage" within a fairly large zone, say the
whole West End, from day one, which won't be cheap

Jeremy Parker


  #7  
Old December 21st 07, 11:55 AM posted to uk.rec.cycling
Chris Malcolm
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 530
Default TfL Survey about rental bikes for public use

Peter Clinch wrote:
vernon wrote:


I'm not a confident user of the bus system i.e. I haven't
a clue which bus to catch or where to get off.


Glad it's not just me (and I'm from Bexley, so my general London
geography wasn't /that/ bad. I just see a bus with, say "Highgate" and
really don't know if it's where I'm wanting, and I note it's not going
that fast either, and generally walk if it's less then southern rail
termini to northern rail termini.


If you have a ticket or pass which covers bus skipping, an easy way to
travel by bus is use a small portable GPS, such as one of the hiking
models. Set up a way point for where you want to go, get on any bus
which is going in the right direction, and get off when it starts
going in the wrong direction. Repeat until near enough.

You can of course occasionally get into trouble with that method and
end up with a pessimised route to your destination, but I find that's
a small price to pay for being able to avoid the frustration and
despair of trying to understand and correlate the web pages of a
number of different bus companies.

--
Chris Malcolm DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[
http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

  #8  
Old December 21st 07, 02:05 PM posted to uk.rec.cycling
Paul Murphy
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 273
Default TfL Survey about rental bikes for public use

"Chris Malcolm" wrote in message
...
Peter Clinch wrote:
vernon wrote:


I'm not a confident user of the bus system i.e. I haven't
a clue which bus to catch or where to get off.


Glad it's not just me (and I'm from Bexley, so my general London
geography wasn't /that/ bad. I just see a bus with, say "Highgate" and
really don't know if it's where I'm wanting, and I note it's not going
that fast either, and generally walk if it's less then southern rail
termini to northern rail termini.


If you have a ticket or pass which covers bus skipping, an easy way to
travel by bus is use a small portable GPS, such as one of the hiking
models. Set up a way point for where you want to go, get on any bus
which is going in the right direction, and get off when it starts
going in the wrong direction. Repeat until near enough.

You can of course occasionally get into trouble with that method and
end up with a pessimised route to your destination, but I find that's
a small price to pay for being able to avoid the frustration and
despair of trying to understand and correlate the web pages of a
number of different bus companies.


I usually find Travelline Southeasts website to be helpful if it's just a
simple case http://www.travelinesoutheast.org.uk/ . I can access this on my
all in one pocket pc/phone/gps although the options aren't as extensive as
if I plan in advance from my home PC with a normal screen resolution. The
problems I've found with using GPS is although it's great in the open, it
doesn't like working in areas with tall buildings all around e.g. the City
of London I've not tried it on the top deck of a double decker in such
circumstances though. I see TomTom (the makers of my PPCs GPS software) have
only just come up with something called enhanced positioning technology to
get around the tall buildings problem so perhaps a future software upgrade
will solve this problem.

Perhaps as well as having a power assist option, the proposed rental bikes
could have a simple inbuilt gps with this capability. It would need to be
yob resistant though.

Paul


  #9  
Old December 21st 07, 03:20 PM posted to uk.rec.cycling
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 307
Default TfL Survey about rental bikes for public use

Paul Murphy wrote:
Perhaps as well as having a power assist option, the proposed rental bikes
could have a simple inbuilt gps with this capability. It would need to be
yob resistant though.


Perhaps they could have HUDs too (or voice output and screen blanking
whenever the bike starts moving). Otherwise I predict a lot of
head-down rental cyclists powering their heavy machines into car
tailgates and pedestrians as a result of looking at the map instead of
the terrain.


-dan
  #10  
Old December 21st 07, 05:37 PM posted to uk.rec.cycling
Paul Murphy
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 273
Default TfL Survey about rental bikes for public use

wrote in message
...
Paul Murphy wrote:
Perhaps as well as having a power assist option, the proposed rental
bikes could have a simple inbuilt gps with this capability. It would need
to be yob resistant though.


Perhaps they could have HUDs too (or voice output and screen blanking
whenever the bike starts moving). Otherwise I predict a lot of head-down
rental cyclists powering their heavy machines into car tailgates and
pedestrians as a result of looking at the map instead of the terrain.


Have you heard of the Tomtom rider (designed for motorbikes)? Even the
software I have on my PPC gives voice directions if required and it only
weighs about 190 grams. With this sort of technology its possible to make
things extremely compact and light - problem is they're also quite fragile.

Bearing in mind alot of people would go for a rental bike to see the sights
as visitors/tourists, how would you suggest they should be assisted to find
their way around or would you have them cast out into Londons traffic
without a clue?

Paul



 




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