Time Running Out for Hourbikes?

A comment by Tim on the previous post dealing with Hourbikes drew attention to the declining number of bikes listed as available from the 4 'hubs' in central Bristol, according to Hourbike's own map. At the time of writing only 10 bikes are shown compared to 18 at the launch of Hourbikes in July. Numbers also appeared low at the 4 UWE/Parkway hubs with just 13 shown as available.



I've been keeping an eye on some of the Hourbike stands (yes CCTV people, that shifty looking character hanging around the hubs is me) and there's little evidence of any use. From time to time there's one more bike at one and one less bike at another, but I've never actually seen anybody using the system. Has anyone? Back in the summer we were told use would pick up when the students returned, which may or may not be true out at UWE but hasn't happened in central Bristol.

On the plus side I've been surprised at how little vandalism there's been. A couple of the wire baskets have been crushed but otherwise the bikes seem to have remained unscathed. Theft might explain the diminishing numbers of bikes, but I suspect they are being quietly withdrawn for use elsewhere. Ten bikes is still more than enough to cope with the minimal demand.



So is there any future for Hourbikes in Bristol? Certainly not on the basis of the current minimal coverage, as many people said at the outset. There doesn't seem to be any effort to secure more hubs either, even at Temple Meads station which is the most obvious location. And I can't see Cycling City throwing any more money at Hourbikes on the basis of current performance.

The failure of the Hourbike venture should be an object lesson for us all in the need for these things to be based on sound market economics and not just wishful thinking. The waste of resources on the Hourbike scheme has been as modest as the network coverage but there was, as possibly still is, pressure for a massive public subsidy which would have been at the expense of potentially much more productive infrastructure investment.

Hourbike Launched with a Whimper

A report in today's Evening Post tells us that Hourbike has been officially launched in Bristol with four hubs, each with about 4 bikes, in central Bristol to complement the four pilot sites at Bristol Parkway and UWE (map here). The story includes a quote from my previous blogpost on Hourbike where I gave a predictably downbeat verdict. But it seems I'm not the only one with doubts about the viability of the scheme.



The Cycling City project seem to be disowning the project, claiming that the funding of £12,000 from Bristol City Council isn't Cycling City money and that Hourbike is not part of Cycling City. This is quite remarkable since all the evidence is that this was envisaged as being an integral part of Cycling City. The media certainly gave that impression at the launch of Cycling City last year and nothing was said to disabuse them of that idea.

The Post report says nothing about any official launch ceremony and so we might conclude that Cycling City don't want it to have a high profile. Even the inevitable Jon Rogers quote is quite guarded.

"Anything that encourages people to leave the car behind and find a healthy, sustainable way of getting about the city has to be welcomed. This pilot scheme will give us the opportunity to see what kind of demand there might be for a more widespread network in Bristol. We certainly wish Hourbike all the best."

Damned by faint praise? But it seems that the promoters of Hourbike have more than enough chutzpah to compensate for the fainthearts elsewhere. Dan Cooper, 28, Hourbike's sole employee in Bristol and nephew of Hourbike boss Tim Caswell (now, now, let's not hear the N word), said

"This can definitely work in Bristol. It cannot fail as an idea."

Mr Cooper goes on to say that there could one day be 2,000 of their bikes on the streets of Bristol (and will it endure for a thousand years too?). But he neglects to mention that the best known automated bike hire schemes, in Paris and Barcelona, were actually launched with thousands of bikes available from hundreds of locations, not just eight hubs that don't as yet even include the central railway station (a minor detail overlooked by the promotional video below).

According to Mr Cooper there are plans to open new hubs, subject to planning permission, in Temple Meads and Temple Quay. One wonders why they need planning permission at these locations but not elsewhere, and why have they been so tardy about progressing a hub at such a key location as Temple Meads. Are First Great Western perhaps lukewarm about encouraging cycling or getting cold feet about their involvement?

If Mr Cooper and family are so confident about the future success of the Hourbike project why have they come cap in hand for public funds to support it instead of raising the funds privately? Surely if it "cannot fail" then it can only succeed and prove a profitable venture? Or is it that no private investor will touch it with a barge pole?



Video summary. Desperation (How to get to the train station in 5 minutes?), Pacification (Ah, an Hourbike Hub), Expectation (This is quick, I'll soon be there), Acclamation (Ah, Temple Meads at last), Realisation (There's no fucking Hub here to deposit the bike!).

HourBike or NineDayWonderBike?

Bristol Traffic just beat me to it with pics of the new Hourbike installations, or hubs, in central Bristol, but at least I managed to find the one tucked away by At-Bristol as well as the one on Colston Avenue. The third is by the BRI and, er, that's it apparently, apart from the existing hubs at Parkway station and the UWE campuses. Map viewable here.

The idea is that you hire a bike near the origin of your journey (or modal transfer point like a railway station or P&R site) and then deposit it at a hub near your destination, so no concerns about bike security when you're not actually using it and no need to pay hire charges other than for the time you're actually riding the bike. Ideal, in principle, for shortish trips around town when you don't have your own bike available.



But with such a meagre distribution of 'hubs' the options are extremely limited. At-Bristol to BRI might just about be worth cycling and the BRI is quite close to the bus station, but either destination to the Colston Avenue hub is such a short distance that it's hardly worth the bother of hiring a bike. A longer journey combined with the use one's own bike lock to secure the bike at the destination is possible, but you'd pay for all the time on hire. And how many people are likely to have a decent bike lock with them?

Temple Meads station is the most obvious 'missing link', so could it be that First Great Western weren't willing to fund a Temple Meads hub, as they had at Bristol Parkway last year? Perhaps the minimal usage of the Parkway hub had given them cold feet? Could it be that a Temple Meads hub is due to appear shortly, before the official launch, whenever that is? As usual with Cycling City funded projects we know little more than can be observed on the ground or via the Internet.



One of the major issues with unsupervised automated bike hire schemes with hubs in public places is the vulnerability of the bikes to theft and vandalism, so let's have a closer look at the details. The bikes are secured by a prong attached to the top of the head tube which looks fairly solid, but the prong appears to be held to the head tube bracket by an allen key bolt. Could it be that all it takes to remove the bike is to undo an allen key bolt?

Another obvious vulnerability, pointed out by Bristol Traffic, is the easy removability of saddle and seat posts via saddle height adjustment mechanisms. BT didn't actually try to steal one, but I did. It doesn't work because at the high limit of adjustment something stops the seat post being raised any further, presumably an enlargement of the very end of the seat post. So at least they've thought of that one.



The lights look extremely vulnerable to damage, which is a shame because it's a neat little lighting system based on an expensive hub dynamo. The rear light could have been built into the rear carrier rack to protect it from casual damage and the front could have had a metal frame built around it for the same purpose. Or they could forget about lights altogether and let users make their own arrangements as and when necessary (which is what I think I would have done).



Both wheels are based on some fancy hubs incorporating brakes and with a dynamo in the front so might be considered desirable by those who appreciate such eminently practical features. The rims and tyres look quite decent too. The wheels are secured by what look like hexagon nuts but which on closer inspection appear to be some special security nuts. I wasn't 'tooled up' yesterday so haven't yet had a serious attempt at stealing bits, but we'll see in due course. I guess all the hub brakes connections would have to be undone too so maybe it's simpler to nick the whole bike.



The actual bicycle frames look cheaply built (crude welding) and clunky, so I don't suppose the bikes as a whole will be coveted by many, but some components are seriously vulnerable. CCTV might be a good idea to deter interference, but there were no signs advertising the presence of CCTV (which signs could be displayed even if there wasn't any CCTV, as on the Railway Path, if one wasn't too scrupulous about honesty - at least the Council shouldn't have any problem with that).

So my verdict, based on what I've seen, is that Hourbike in Bristol will be a nine day wonder and briefly attract a lot of media interest, followed by a longer period where it becomes a standing joke as the bikes suffer attrition but precious little in the way of legitimate use. This is primarily because the existing 'network' is so ludicrously limited. If Temple Meads and a few other central locations, perhaps including Long Ashton P&R, were included then it might have a chance.

Later correction 9 pm Saturday.



I've since discovered that the Hourbike bikes come equipped with a combination cable lock (combination issued on hire) so you wouldn't need to have your own lock. Having said that cable locks are notoriously easy to cut through and then the hirer would be responsible for the loss. Plus previous hirers of the same bike will know the combination. I wouldn't trust one.

Why Words Matter.

Following on from the last post about the use of the term "new" by Cycling City to describe existing cycle routes that are being upgraded, which provoked some interesting responses including this coverage in an online cycling magazine (thanks to Noel for that link), I thought it might be productive to explore why the meaning of words, semantics, isn't merely a matter for "sterile and pedantic" debate as suggested by Cllr Jon Rogers.

First a dabble in the theory. All our thoughts and actions are based on ideas which are formulated with words. If words don't have agreed and recognised meanings then we cannot use them with any precision. If we cannot use words with precision then the ideas based on them become amorphous and ultimately meaningless. Then our thoughts and actions have no solid basis, which leaves us prey to the shysters, snake oil salesmen and politicians of this world. If that makes any sense you might like this piece by Charles Eisenstein, kindly flagged up by Tim Beadle and others via twitter, which takes the theme much further.



Now for a practical example. Yesterday Jon Rogers, who I'm still convinced wants to be as open and transparent as is possible, answered a query about the Hourbike scheme raised on the public Bristol cycling Campaign forum, saying (in a series of responses which I've amalgamated)-

I had a briefing this afternoon about imminent HourBike launch. Small private company that has been quietly trialling up at UWE between Parkway Station and UWE.

Officer response..."It's not part of the Council's Cycling City programme, but a private initiative started before the Cycling City funding was announced and consistent with our aims to promote and increase cycling. As part of the programme however we are also looking at the options for wider access to bikes, of which hire on a bigger scale is one."

Hour Bike is privately funded. They have, I understand had a grant of £4k, with further £4K for launch and £4k due next year - total £12K from Council investment. Would you like me to ask if that is counted as part of the council share of it's investment in Cycling City?

But then quite a lot more information emerged from another source. It seems this "privately funded private initiative" is mostly funded by public funds (from Bristol City Council, the University of the West of England (UWE) and First Great Western) and originated from publicly funded research at UWE. So Jon Rogers might well be pondering what 'private' means in that context. Clearly the officers giving him advice have a very different idea of the meaning of the word to me.

We also learn that another £20k of Cycling City money was allocated to the second phase of the Hourbike project. How does that fit with the £12k funding (which may or may not be Cycling City money - we still await a response on that point) reported by Jon Rogers? Some people need to be reminded that Cycling City money remains our tax money, however many different agencies it's passed between, and we're entitled to know exactly what it is being spent on.

The Cycling City launch press release said -

And there are new plans for a 24 hour automated bike hire scheme called ‘Hourbike’, providing bike locations (docking stations) across Bristol City centre and further afield around Parkway Station and the University of the West of England. This is subject to agreements on funding by the operator.

So is it right to say that the Hourbike scheme is not part of Cycling City? The Cycling City PR materials seems to say that it is. The funding seems to say that it is. But the officers say that it isn't. Who should Jon Rogers believe? Who should we believe?



My interpretation of this is that Cycling City are distancing themselves from the Hourbike scheme, presumably because they don't think it's viable or simply aren't prepared to pump prime it to the level where it could be viable. The Hourbike map suggests just three new locations in central Bristol to go with the four existing locations at Parkway (above) and UWE. That looks like little more than a token gesture to me.

But of course if Cycling City were honest and open about these things we wouldn't need my 'interpretations' or speculation, rumour and guesswork. We'd have the facts, based on words with agreed meanings. Surely Jon Rogers must be beginning to appreciate the logic of that.