The council will announce the name of the new operator of the city’s new cycle hire scheme on Monday afternoon.
It is expected that the trial e-bike scheme will be up and running just a few days later.
As already announced, several companies, including Dott and also a company called Lime, bid for the contract to run the service at zero cost to the council.
The council had set next week as a target launch date for the trial, with the scheme set to start on a small scale.
It is not yet known clear if bikes will be on the street next week, but it is understood the council are confident the scheme will be up and running by the end of August. Edinburgh’s transport convener previously said the scheme would be implemented “diligently”, and in a way that fits the capital’s “specific needs”.
The trial will last for two years, and the council aims to retain the service permanently after that. A few e-bikes will be available for hire first in the central part of the city, and the number of bikes and coverage area will then expand.
Just Eat e-bikes. Photo: Martin P. McAdam www.martinmcadam.com
The city’s last cycle hire scheme, latterly sponsored by Just Eat, collapsed almost four years ago due to a range of issues, including the vandalism of many bikes. The council and private operator Serco could not agree a deal to continue running it, and those docking stations which still existed (many had been removed due to vandalism) were fully cleared from the city.
Large numbers of bikes were thrown in the Water of Leith or stolen. Efforts to reintroduce a cycle hire scheme have been underway since the previous scheme failed four years ago, but there have been concerns that it would not be feasible to reintroduce one in the city. In 2022 one option was to approve a docked system on a “managed service” basis but that would have required an initial capital investment of £8.36 million deemed not possible.
Among the concerns was the cost that running a scheme could have involved, with the Just Eat bikes scheme costing the city £1.8 million in pure financial terms.
By using the dockless model which both Dott and Lime use, the new scheme will be run at no cost to the city, with hire fares for the bikes subsidising the costs of running the service.
Following an intervention by the Conservative group on the council at the May Transport and Environment Committee meeting, The City of Edinburgh Council will seize any cycle hire bikes parked inappropriately, (outwith geofenced locations) and charge whichever company is running the scheme to get them back. This type of “fine” is used in the City of London, where the council holds misplaced hire bikes for 24 hours and then charges operators £235 for their return. Any data collected during the pilot will include the number of bikes parked in the wrong place.
It was also agreed that the operator chosen for the scheme will provide an assessment of ways to minimise street clutter.
Both Dott and Lime run cycle hire schemes in other parts of the UK, as well as in Europe. There are 40+ cycle hire schemes in the UK and six were selected for appraisal of the options in February 2023 after an initial decision in November 2021 to obtain information about what a new Edinburgh scheme might look like.
Transport and Environment Committee convener Stephen Jenkinson said last month: “Our initial target was to launch the trial cycle hire scheme during the month of August, and I remain confident that we’ll deliver this.
“As ever, we’ll work closely with summer festival operators and our other partners to minimise disruption during this busy period.
“We’re determined that any cycle hire scheme is implemented diligently and in the right way for the specific needs of Edinburgh.”
When final approval for a scheme was given in May, Cllr Jenkinson said he would “not apologise” for placing council officers under significant time pressure to launch it. It is council officers who will decide which of the bids is successful.
by Joseph Sullivan Local Democracy Reporter .
Lime Bikes offer a scheme in London. They are one of the providers which is on the shortlist in Edinburgh
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
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