Hi ,Following on from Dave Holladay's post on another thread:
The figures I've seen reported for London suggest that each Barclays Bike was hired just once a day over the first three days.
Each Velib in Paris is used 4 to 8 times a day. London's once a day is not a disaster, but not what should be hoped for.
London has 12,000 subscribers, but after just one year Paris had 198,913 annual subscribers (approx 12.5 annual subscribers per bike at that time), plus 277,193 seven days subscribers plus another 3,683,714 one day subscribers. 26 million trips were made and they averaged 18 minutes each.
London will eventually have 6,000 bikes... and eventually 400 stations, with more expected to follow in stages. Paris launched with 10,000 bikes (with all wheels turning freely and locks) and 800 docking stations (that allowed daily subscriptions, bikes to release and confirmed bike returns).
Paris had also included a cycling infrastructure as part of the Velib scheme, whereas London has those much ridiculed blue super highways that do not appear to be relevant to the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme.
It is just my personal view, but I think that London is not offering a complete package... and needs to get its bike-sharing scheme working properly, fast!
Ian.
