Russell Lynch: Don’t put a spoke in the boris bike scheme
Transport Commissioner Mike Brown has put the Boris Bike scheme under review as Transport for London considers its straitened budgets, but economists reckon they could get more bang for their buck by designing it properly.
The Santander-sponsored scheme is a relative success, with more than 300,000 regular users and 70 million hires since it was introduced more than seven years ago. But new research suggests that actually putting the docking stations in the right place could bolster the usage of the scheme by as much as 10 times.
According to experts at Columbia, Chicago Booth and Insead business school, the scheme is being hindered by the rule stipulating docking stations for the bikes should be no more than 300 metres apart.
With usage of the bikes and the most popular routes dominated by commuters, they found stations dotted along the most common routes under-used while riders struggle to find docking points at the busiest destinations during peak hours.
Increasing the density in the centre of London is far more effective than expanding coverage. “Adding stations to the city centre leads to 10 times more usage increase than adding stations to the peripheries,” the experts’ report said.
If Mayor Sadiq Khan wants to make London a green leader, he should redesign the scheme, not cut it back.