Northern Bike and Go

[pemma]

Northern have put out this news story which doesn't appear to be very clear

Bike and Go, Northern Rail’s very own bike hire subscription scheme hosts its second birthday on the network on Thursday 13 August and Northern is celebrating the success of its the scheme at one of its newest locations; Manchester Oxford Road.

Customers will be treated to balloons, presents and birthday cake and anyone who shares the Bike and Go birthday of 13 August* can receive a year’s free subscription.

Bike and Go is now installed at 26 Northern stations, and allows customers to hire a bicycle to continue their journey straight from the station. Since its launch two years ago, over 600 hires have been made across the Northern network.

Alex Hynes, Managing Director for Northern, comments: “We are delighted with the success of Bike and Go and pleased to see so many of our customers choosing to use a sustainable means of onward travel from our stations.

“We’re hoping our customers will help us celebrate and toast the success of an innovative and sustainable way to travel.”
*To claim the birthday prize of a free subscription, customers should email a scan or their passport or driver’s licence for proof of birth date of 13 August to [email protected]

http://www.northernrail.org/news/7734

Do they mean share Bike and Go on your social media account and then they will give you a free subscription by sending your a scan of your driver's licence or passport to them?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Doesn't mention social media that I can see - just email them if your birthday is 13th August. (That's what they mean by share - have the same birthday)

 

[eastwestdivide]

...Northern is celebrating the success of its the scheme ...

...
Bike and Go is now installed at 26 Northern stations, and allows customers to hire a bicycle to continue their journey straight from the station. Since its launch two years ago, over 600 hires have been made across the Northern network.

600 hires in two years? Less than one a day across the network of 26 stations? I don't know what their criteria for success were, but I'd call that a slow take-up.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The problem to me would be availability. Because unlike London there aren't large numbers of hire points, I'd only really consider it if I could reserve a bike. And if I'm going to do that you could argue it's easier to take my own there and store it at the station

 

[pemma]

600 hires in two years? Less than one a day across the network of 26 stations? I don't know what their criteria for success were, but I'd call that a slow take-up.

Yes. At Knutsford there's a rack of 10 bikes and there's always at least 9 in them and that's at the station closest to Tatton Park. I think it would work better if there was a subscription rate and a Pay as You Go rate with PAYG being available to people who haven't signed up in advance.

 

[HH]

600 hires in two years? Less than one a day across the network of 26 stations? I don't know what their criteria for success were, but I'd call that a slow take-up.

There was an even lower level of take up on AGA last I checked. All the powers that be love to put money into these schemes, but no-one wants to use them.

 

[Camden]

Think there are a number of things they could do to increase the attractiveness of the scheme, including enabling spontaneous hire (rather than having to send off for a membership card first).

I'd dispute no one wants to use them. Quick google: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/citybike-celebrates-year-liverpools-streets-9252378

Nearly 56,000 hires in one year in one single district of Liverpool (they're not city wide), but 600 across a network than spans the entire north. Suggests to me improvements could be made and worth making!

 

[dk1]

There was an even lower level of take up on AGA last I checked. All the powers that be love to put money into these schemes, but no-one wants to use them.

Has to be one of the most pathetic flops in the history of franchise commitments. When you think of all the things that passengers actually want & need its criminal.

 

[modernrail]

Bike hire has proved to be incredibly successful in lots of places and in lots of different contexts. Bikes have the potential to constitute excellent last mile transport around railway stations across the country. However, the scheme has to be well designed for the particular context and suit how passengers want to use the scheme.

If you compare the procedure for hiring through the Brompton and the Northern Rail schemes you will see the main problem:

http://www.northernrail.org/travel/cycling/bike-and-go

http://www.bikeradar.com/commuting/...-dock-bike-hire-scheme-put-to-the-test-33903/

The northern scheme is basically flawed, the Brompton scheme is much better. With northern you need to (1) get a card by post and (2) scan it at the ticket office and collect a key?!?

They might as well distribute parts of the bike around the station and give you 5 minutes to assemble it, perhaps with the Crystal maze music going in the background.

Also, the locations of some of the stands is just plain daft. I noticed at Wigan Wallgate they are on the platform, at the end furthest away from the station building. If you travel into Wigan, I presume you would need to get off your train, walk up the stairs to the ticket office, queue to get a key (if the ticket office is open), walk back down the stairs onto the platform and get your bike, queue for the lift as it will be too heavy for most to lift up the stairs and then push through the concourse. Presumably you would need to do the same in reverse on your return. Total madness.

I remember hiring a bike from the Leeds City Station facility when that first opened. My mood quickly went from excitement at a handy new option to extreme irritation. It took nearly 30 minutes to register and collect the bike.

Bikes can be extremely useful for last mile transport. However, the northern scheme needs to be altered to suit how people will actually use the scheme. 600 hires is a failure. Time to go back to the drawing board and talk to passengers about how they actually want to use the bikes. It is not that things like this should not be a priority, somebody just needs to engage their brain for just a few seconds whilst putting the thing together.

 

[HH]

I'd dispute no one wants to use them. Quick google: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/citybike-celebrates-year-liverpools-streets-9252378

No-one wants to use them from rail stations. The reasons why they work across a city (and 'Boris Bikes' are a far bigger example) should point to why they don't work so well where the only pick up and drop off point is the rail station.

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The northern scheme is basically flawed, the Brompton scheme is much better. With northern you need to (1) get a card by post and (2) scan it at the ticket office and collect a key?!?

I absolutely agree that this doesn't help, but it's probably not the main issue. With Boris Bikes I can pick up one outside the rail station and drop it off close to the office (there's a choice of 5 places within a few minutes walk). These rail bike schemes just don't have that flexibility - the whole idea is flawed. They should rather seek to be part of a borough-wide scheme.

 

[radamfi]

It is obviously based on the hugely successful OV-Fiets service run by Dutch Railways. 1.5 million hires from 252 locations by 180,000 subscribers in 2014:

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/OV-fiets

However, the British implementation was bound to be less popular because:

You have to queue up at the ticket office to pick up and collect the bike, whereas in the Netherlands you simply pick up the bike and walk out, swiping the card at the exit with the attendant which delays you about 1 to 2 seconds.

The £3.80 price is higher than the cost in the Netherlands (3.15 euros for 24 hours), also the £10 membership fee is higher than the 10 euros in the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands you pay 6 euros a day to take your bike on the train and it is banned in peak times except in July and August whereas it is free in the UK and is even allowed at all times on Northern.

 

[HH]

Has to be one of the most pathetic flops in the history of franchise commitments. When you think of all the things that passengers actually want & need its criminal.

Blame DfT and other government bodies. Put a couple in your bid and up goes the "quality" score. I once tried to persuade them that they shouldn't incentivise schemes that don't produce economic benefits, but bikes set Whitehall hearts a-flutter...

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

It is obviously based on the hugely successful OV-Fiets service run by Dutch Railways.

However, the British implementation was bound to be less popular because...

And because the Netherlands have a huge cycling culture, helped both by geography and civic planning.

 

[Camden]

Blame DfT and other government bodies. Put a couple in your bid and up goes the "quality" score. I once tried to persuade them that they shouldn't incentivise schemes that don't produce economic benefits, but bikes set Whitehall hearts a-flutter...

Well that adds up and starts to make a lot of sense. I'm guessing the mandarins also like it (despite the waste) because they can tick environmental boxes? I agree with all of the above about the changes that need to be made to make it work, including drop off locations. If you're going to have a scheme at all, why not make it a success.

And because the Netherlands have a huge cycling culture, helped both by geography and civic planning.

But I wouldn't say Liverpool has a cycling culture, and it's certainly not a cycle friendly city if you know it. A decent scheme though, ticks most of the boxes for immediacy and usefulness, and gets 56k uses in its first year in a district of 470k.

I read an article not so long ago talking about the Danish push to get people cycling, how much effort it took to make it happening en masse, but today it's the default mode of transport for nearly half of commuters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_Copenhagen Shows you can achieve big change with the right approach.

 

[HH]

I agree that a good scheme can get patronage in this country; there has been a big change in attitudes to cycling over the last few years. Boris Bikes had over 47k hires in a single day, and that's on a fleet of 11.5k. TfL reckon there are now over 600k cycle journeys a day in London. And London is hardly cycle friendly either.

But still, those figures are small in comparison to the Netherlands.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree that a good scheme can get patronage in this country; there has been a big change in attitudes to cycling over the last few years. Boris Bikes had over 47k hires in a single day, and that's on a fleet of 11.5k. TfL reckon there are now over 600k cycle journeys a day in London. And London is hardly cycle friendly either.

The big thing about Boris bikes is that the large number of hire stations mean that (a) you can near enough always get one if you shop around a bit, (b) you don't have to keep hold of it all day (indeed, you're discouraged from doing so), and (c) they are useful for one way rides. And I suppose (d) the distributed nature of central London as against the other towns makes local journeys by modes other than foot more desirable.

That makes the Boris bike scheme a whole lot more useful.

FWIW I've been using the Boris bikes a lot more now I don't have to carry an awkwardly shaped key or use the clunky UI on the "pillars", and can instead get a release code on the new app.

 

[HH]

I agree with all that although there are a number of other cities that have a distributed centre, even if not to the same level as London. The average journey is quite short I believe.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree with all that although there are a number of other cities that have a distributed centre, even if not to the same level as London.

True, but few of them such that a bicycle will, by the time you've queued to obtain it, make a massive difference over walking.

 

[radamfi]

It is interesting to note that a lot of the Boris Bike-style cycle hire schemes like in Paris, London, Liverpool etc. are located in cities where cycling is not very popular. They don't have such schemes in Amsterdam or Copenhagen, for example.

 

[dk1]

Then again on the AGA network it could create jobs to help Government targets. Somebody needs to dust them down through an astonishing lack of use.