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Dutch-style bike hire scheme now at more than 40 railway stations in England (+ video)

Abellio, overseas arm of Netherlands' national rail operator, plans more openings...

An award-winning bike hire scheme from a Dutch-owned rail operator has now been launched at more than 40 stations across England. The initiative, called Bike & Go, comes from Abellio which operates the Northern Rail, Greater Anglia and Merseyrail franchises, and is modelled on a similar scheme in the Netherlands.

According to Local Transport Today, the initiative, which is modelled on the OV Fiets system operated by Abellio’s owner, the Dutch state railway service Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS), and allows rail users to hire the bikes for £3.80 a day, has now been rolled out to 43 stations across the three networks.

Those stations are:

North East and Yorkshire

Almouth, Barnsley, Beverley, Bradford Interchange, Halifax, Harrogate, Leeds, Meadowhall, Rotherham, Shipley and Wakefield.

North West and Merseyside

Aintree, Altrincham, Blackburn, Blackpool North, Buxton, Ellesmere Port, Formby, Hooton, Knutsford, Liverpool Central, Liverpool South Parkway, Maghull, Morecambe, New Brighton, Ormskirk, Rochdale, Southport, St Helens Central, Todmorden, West Kirby, Wigan Wallgate, Wilmslow, and Whitehaven.

Anglia & South East

Bishops Stortford, Clacton-on-Sea, Colchester, Ely, Enfield Town, Manningtree, Harold Wood, Romford, Lowestoft and Southend Victoria.

Andrew Bristow, project manager of Bike & Go – which is co-ordinated by Merseyrail and last year won a national Cycle-Rail Award – told Local Transport Today that there are 10 bicycles at almost all of the stations included in the scheme.

He added that an app is in the pipeline that will provide information including how many are available at each location.

The stations have been chosen partly for their proximity to places such as higher education sites, as well as for demographic reasons, and Mr Bristow said that it could also be rolled out to other locations besides railway stations following enquiries from local authorities, a different rail operator, and even a charity.

Hopes to launch the initiative in Manchester city centre have not yet come to fruition, however, due to an inability to reach agreement with stakeholders involved.

Abellio does however plan to add more stations to the scheme, with Hebden Bridge, Hexham, London Liverpool Street, Stowmarket, Great Yarmouth, Ipswich and Chelmsford all set to join it, plus seven stations on the Merseyrail network.

The system itself requires users to sign up online and pay an annual fee of £10. For that, they receive a smartcard that needs to be presented at the station ticket office to receive a key to unlock the bike.

So far, 250 people have signed up since the scheme was launched in August last year, and one potential barrier is that the bike needs to be returned to the same station from which it was hired.

The following video shows how the scheme works.

Mr Bristow told Local Transport Today: “Do we want to move to the next level? That’s what we’ll be asking ourselves but we’ve got to get the basics right first. It’s also got to be viable for us.”

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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5 comments

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Awavey | 10 years ago
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just because Abellio are Dutch doesnt mean its automatically a good thing for all cyclists. As road.cc reported late last year this bike hire scheme comes in at the expense of attempts to increase the exclusions around the carriage of bikes on existing trains,and for any tangible improvements in capacity, safer & secure cycle parking.

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oadatapa | 10 years ago
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When will Cambridge get a Bike & Go hire scheme?

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RedfishUK replied to oadatapa | 10 years ago
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oadatapa wrote:

When will Cambridge get a Bike & Go hire scheme?

I think it depends on the operating company most of the stations with Bike & Go are operated by Northern Rail and Mersey Rail which according to their website

"Who is Northern Rail?....... a subsidiary of NS Dutch Railways. In addition to the Northern franchise, they also hold the 25-year concession to run Merseyrail services"

So it looks like in this case, we are getting a little bit of Dutch thinking...

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GREGJONES | 10 years ago
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I've seen these and it looks good, with well designed bikes.

You've got to remember that a lot are in places like Halifax (hilly) or Cheshire (being seen on a bike =poverty).

What they need to do is start it up in Manchester and Liverpool, then those people might make good use of the bikes from other stations for days out or simply meeting a mate.

Also an app is essential for this sort of thing

Avatar
farrell replied to GREGJONES | 10 years ago
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GREGJONES wrote:

I've seen these and it looks good, with well designed bikes.

You've got to remember that a lot are in places like Halifax (hilly) or Cheshire (being seen on a bike =poverty).

What they need to do is start it up in Manchester and Liverpool, then those people might make good use of the bikes from other stations for days out or simply meeting a mate.

Also an app is essential for this sort of thing

Can't see it happening in Manchester. Stagecoach own Manchester and don't like anything stopping them making money, hence no bikes on the Metrolink, tramtracks dissecting cyclepaths and walkways and shunting war memorials for them, the destruction of roads and surfaces by thundering buses and the councils willingness to spend cycling money hand over fist on turning Oxford Road in to an unsafe to cycle on bus station with no access for cars.

Also, the train station has a fancy pants "Brompton Dock", no-use to normal people but then hey? Who cares about normal people?

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