To:
Cycling-and-Society members
Thanks
very much for the e-mail responses (both on-list and off-list) to my e-mail
request last week. Much appreciated (apologies to those who feel swamped by
e-mails on this subject). It helped me present the latest issues to our
transport sustainability group on campus today.
It
appears Loughborough University campus does not have a ‘critical mass’
of cyclists to pursue a bike hire system, or support from senior managers due to
perceived financial viability and security issues (bicycle theft / vandalism);
some of this is due to a Loughborough University ‘yellow bike’ campus
pilot scheme 10-15 years ago (frustrated that there is no data on the scheme,
before my time here).
On
campus there is a pilot, small-scale bike rental scheme (“bike library”),
akin to the Leeds Velocampus scheme, together with bike recycling (a worthy measure,
both from e-mail responses and my experience of the Bike Station in Edinburgh).
I am pushing for theses measures to be developed further.
There
also needs to be a deeper understanding of cyclist needs on campus, and I’d
like to pursue a more in-depth study of student travel behaviour (plus staff,
visitors etc). One aspect to test, that came out today is that first-year
students tend to like the social aspect of walking in groups on campus rather
than cycling, but a more worthy cyclist target could be second-year (and
final-year) students living in town travelling to/from campus. Plus, I would
like to tap into the sports ethos of students on campus, and link that to bike
promotion.
Thanks
again.
Kind regards
Tim
Dr Tim Ryley
Senior Lecturer in Transport Studies
Transport Studies Group
Department of Civil and Building Engineering
Tel: +44 (0)1509 223422
Web-page: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/cv/staff/profile/145.html