The city’s bikeshare bikes are to be taken off the road from next month until a new £13 million scheme starts at an unspecified date in 2023.
The withdrawal of Vodafone’s increasingly unreliable 3G signal from March, which the bikes computer systems rely on, is the most significant factor in the decision, but the poor condition of the existing bikes is also an issue.
However, the council cannot currently give a more specific date than 2023 for when the scheme will be relaunched – which could mean that they’re not available for several months or even up to a year.
When the council agreed to retender the scheme in March, expanding it to include a larger fleet and electric bikes, it was expected that a new contract would be awarded over the summer. The tender deadline was in May.
The council said that the new operator and supplier contracts with preferred bidders were now expected to be signed in the next few weeks.
Councillor Steve Davis, who co-chairs the council’s Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee, said: “We recognise that this news is disappointing and share the disappointment of users that we are having to pause the scheme. However, we’re fully committed to seeing the return next year of a new-look bike scheme for Brighton and Hove.
“I’m very disappointed that the council hasn’t had any response from Vodafone UK concerning the problems experienced with the 3G signal. I would have expected more from such a large company. These issues have inconvenienced thousands of residents and visitors around the city.
“I’d like to thank council and HourBike staff for their hard work during what has been a very challenging time for BTN BikeShare. Their dedication and perseverance have ensured the scheme has continued to operate, albeit on a more limited basis, during another busy year.
“However, the issues relating to the age of the fleet and Vodafone 3G have now made the continuation untenable and the scheme needs a refresh for the benefit of our residents and visitors.
“While the scheme will pause for a short time at the beginning of next year, I’m looking forward to a bigger and better BTN BikeShare in 2023 with a new fleet, electric bikes and more docking stations.
“BTN BikeShare is something Brighton and Hove can be proud of now and in the future.”
Bikes will begin to be removed from service from Monday 19 December and close for hires by Saturday 31 December. The service is unlikely to restart before spring.
Annual memberships and renewals were paused in May in preparation for a new scheme but anyone with an existing annual membership will be given the option of being refunded for their remaining unspent months or can donate this to a local cycling charity.
Pay as you go members, active in the past eight weeks, with unspent balances of more than £3 at Saturday 31 December can also request to reclaim or donate these.
The £13 million new scheme is expected to include the following
- At least 60 per cent of the new fleet of bikes will be electric
- 312 new pedal-only bikes to replace the existing pedal-only fleet with a further 468 e-bikes to make up a fleet of 780 in total
- More bike docking stations to make the scheme truly city-wide
- A range of tariff options for users
…
The council said that it was disappointed in Vodafone’s lack of communication, even after chief executive Geoff Raw wrote to Vodafone UK’s board of directors to ask for a resolution.
It said that the 3G problems had also taken up a significant amount of time and resource from the operator which had also affected the repairs and maintenance of the fleet.
The software provider has had to pass on their increased costs to the operator because of these issues but has agreed to continue their service until the end of the year.
Green council incompetency is clear again but you can guarantee they will be back before for the May elections.
3G (and 2G by 2033) is being phased out now -it will all be gone – Just like copper phone cables.
There is little traffic now on 3G as everyone is using 4G or 5G.
Also pertinent is that mobile providers share antennas (otherwise there would be 4 x more masts) – which as we know upsets the good citizens of Brighton.
The announcement was made in June 2021, and Ofcom has ratified this. Interesting how a bicycle that could last 100 years is made obsolete in 5 by a change in mobile data technology. A lot of scrap metal, and associated carbon…
Perhaps any replacement bikes will be future-proofed ? or will we have this conversation when 4G retires ?
Older wireless technology is beneficial as it can penetrate some materials easier than faster connections. Even buses use Vodafone.
Well, that’ll make the pavements slightly safer for a while – users of these bikes are some of the worst offenders at not knowing that you aren’t supposed to cycle on the pavement…
Couldn’t agree more. My first thought on reading this
Do love STEM-challenged driving instructor Steve Davis trying to divert attention by blaming Vodafone for another Green Party planning fiasco – if only BTN BikeShare had used 4G, which started in 2009, for the 2017 system.
I wonder which genius chose doomed 3G?
Why can’t the phone hardware just be upgraded? It makes me laugh that the bike loving council can’t even get their bikes to work. Instead they are going to scrap them? Not very “green”.
So you blame Vodafone and 3g for now losing the bike share… How about the council does the resaearch before throwing money at it… O wait they don’t, just like the i360
This was all announced officially in July 2021 with first mention back in 2019 that is would happen around 2024
I wonder if someone can come up with figures showing how much this failed bike scheme has cost us – and what any replacement scheme is likely to cost local residents.
I for one was rather proud of the bike scheme when it was launched, and it was obviously well used. But we were told it was self financing and a major step towards ‘sustainable’ transport.
There’s obviously nothing sustainable about bikes left rusting in the street and unused, and will the current bikes all now be scrapped?
If they add batteries to the new incoming bikes so that they are electric assisted then how long will those new batteries last before we have yet more redundant technology?
A normal bike can last for decades if cared for properly – and that’s my idea of ‘sustainable’.
This is the latest set back from a council that doesn’t weed our streets, doesn’t sweep up autumn leaves so our street drains are now blocked, and which has closed city centre toilets. As residents, we have to ask if those making decisions on our behalf have got their priorities right.
Right wing political activitists Peter Challis and Billy Short are outraged at absolutely everything. It can’t be healthy.
Thanks Mary – who said I was outraged? Just exasperated by yet another failure by the Green Party.
So all the bikes and racks will have to be replaced, even those that were installed this year, as they are unlikely to be compatible with the new racks – especially if they must provide electrical power.
Then we have the 3G network being used as an excuse for the replacement when potentially they could switch to another network operator for an interim period. Better to blame Vodafone rather than Brighton & Hove City Council accept they screwed up.
I wonder how much this replacement will cost, and how much of this will be financed by residents in our council tax?
But thank you for calling me a “right wing political activist” – not sure where you get your information from, but I’m just a resident who is fed up with our money being thrown at eco-schemes of dubious value, whilst statutory services are dropped, and the council blames the government for lack of funding.
Which political party do you support whilst hiding your identity? 😏
Mary, did you actually read what I wrote?
I’m a life-long Labour voter so it’s a bit odd to be called ‘right wing’.
I’m not sure I’m ‘outraged’ either, but as someone who loves our city I’m certainly concerned.
I’m also a green activist of many decades and with a very low carbon footprint, but I am very worried that several policies that are sold to us as ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ are actually fake-green – where the alleged benefits don’t stack up or where the outcome is failure.
Whatever your political leanings it’s right to call out these obvious failures and to point out where money is clearly being mis-directed or wasted. We need to learn from these mistakes – and not just use spin tactics to blame others or to cover up blunders.
Basic services in this city have reached an all time low. I would say that I’m disappointed our road in Hove hasn’t been swept or weeded for two years or more.
I’m also shocked that they have closed city centre public toilets in key tourist areas.
Given you’re a life long labour voter, I’m surprised you don’t understand the impact that 12 years of Tory austerity has on basic services, particularly given the cuts are combined with social care costs that have rocketed with an ageing population.
Many of the things you are outraged about (e.g. your 100s of comments and posts relating to cycle lanes) are funded by central government and this money is contingent on it being spent exactly as directed by the central gov – it’s not an option to spend this money on toilets or weeding instead. But yeah, much easier to simply blame the labour/green council and call things “fake green” when you don’t agree with them.
I’m also surprised that you think a bike share scheme should be profit making – very odd. Again, given you vote labour, I’d have thought you’d be all for subsidised public transport that provides a wider benefit to the local economy and supports those who can’t afford cars getting to work.
Thanks Mary! How much is cllr Davis paying you?
Once again, Mike (and Billy below) there is always someone who wants to make all this political, label others as left-wing, right-wing or whatever, and at the end of the day blame absolutely everything on Tory austerity/cuts, totally ignoring the fact that this council has been awarded funding for various (disastrous) projects and generally wastes most of whatever money they do have without providing the bog basic services. That’s not political, it’s just taxpayers wanting something basic for their money. And we still have to get any explanation at all about how the council managed a £13m overspend on staffing costs and why they apparently have 25 people or so on their’communications team’ who, collectively, don’t seem to communicate anything to the people who pay their salaries.
No excuse whatsoever for rusty bikes and obsolete software, is there!
Mary
You tell us the impact of 12 years of Tory austerity has had on basic services, particularly given the cuts are combined with social care costs that have rocketed with an ageing population.
The word ‘cut’ isn’t strictly correct being BHCC have received increases year on year, however the increase doesn’t match the additional costs so a shortfall in funding would be a better phase.
The council other than ring fenced will allocate its funding where they like. It is interesting that for 22/23, the council spent £35Million on regeneration projects, things like cutting down the green wall and other vanity projects etc.
It’s interesting that you tell us cycle lanes are funded by central government under various schemes. And that is true.
Two points here to consider, you complain about ‘cuts’ then tell us we get Government funding for projects, and we can’t use this funding for other projects and there lies part of the problem.
This money has been taken out the main pot, meaning less in the pot for council budgets but hey ho, I guess that doesn’t really matter provided vanity projects are considered a priority.
Second, you correctly state Government fund such things a cycle lanes, but fail to grasp the council also fund these projects in part.
Interesting that BHCC set aside funding for toilet refurbishment but have taken some out of that budget to help FUND the Hove Vanity project. Great, perhaps we can take a pee in the plants pots.
How much council tax is being spent on the Hanover project that isn’t wanted or needed ?
I’m surprised that you don’t think the bike share scheme should be making a profit. Why not, council tax money taken out the pot to fund this means less in the pot for social care you told us about, didn’t think of that did you?
The bike share scheme is an excellent idea, but it should be profit making to pay for itself and future upgrades.
As for subsidised public transport, we already know how the ‘Greens’ feel about Public Transport, lowest priority I’m afraid. Family’s and parents struggling to get children to school either through financial or bus service provision and our council claim there’s no money in the pot, yet, it made £27million profit from parking, money that has to go back into transport, so where’s that £27m gone, where’s the funding it received from the Bus Service Improvement Plan, on 4 April 2022 on BHCC’s own web page the council announced it had received 27.1 Million so where has close to £50 million gone ?
As for weeds and the rest, we pay council taxes for these basic service’s, rubbish and recycling is a basic legal requirement and we all know the ‘Greens’ have failed in this simple task.
We have a council that threatens victims of crime with fines if they don’t remove graffiti from their property by heavy handed moronic Enforcement Officers who should in fact, be catching these vandals and ‘fining’ them.
We have council who threaten an elderly couple with legal action if they don’t deal with a tree, a tree that’s not on their property and actually owned by the council.
We have a council who claim they are unable to employee staff to weed due to Brexit, yet find staff quickly enough to destroy the green wall, walk round putting tickets on people’s cars, having BBQ’s, dropping rubbish and threaten to fine hard working shop owners because some brain dead lowlife has sprayed painted the walls.
You accuse posters of being labour voters, maybe they are, maybe not, but they have intelligence to see what is so wrong in the city. We suffered under the green administration back in 15 and we had the worse recycling record, nothing has changed, only the gormless vote green.
You obviously are not a Tory voter nor I assume a Labour voter, that must mean a ‘Green’ and with the state of the city, you are the reason and cause of the state of the city.
Hullo Mary, thanks for replying.
It does however seem like you’re part of the shouty tribalism that is causing the extra problem here, namely that we can’t even discuss our concerns.
You would seemingly rather close an argument down by calling us right wing or suggesting we are ‘outraged’, when we are neither.
I never mentioned whether I thought the bike scheme should make a profit – I just asked that we be given the true figures, rather than be conned into thinking it was paying for itself and a long term sustainable plan.
In fact I would accept that a bike scheme that gets people out of cars should be subsidised, because there are plenty of fringe benefits – such as cleaner air and better public health – that can’t always be quantified.
But this is not the issue here. It’s about some blunders which must now be rectified at further tax payers’ expense. The mistakes must be learnt from here.
As it happens, I own three bikes and am a frequent bus user. But our current council with it’s bike lane duplication obsession seems happy to make public transport worse, and that’s a particular shame when our limited bus service is privatised and routes have been cut back in the past three years.
The ‘fake-green’ term is not one I say lightly, and I use it call out claims which do not stack up.
It’s used where something sounds like a good idea or can be sold to residents as helping both the local environment and the planet – when in fact it’s neither.
It’s not dirty to discuss money, or to look at budgets and how things are financed. The Tory cuts are well known, as is that stupid ring fencing that goes on. But we also see that new government funding handed down for specific projects then requires a council tax contribution for that scheme to happen.
And if local money is so tight why are these projects still going ahead, when our basic services are so poor? A prime example of fake-green and a complete waste of money is the Hanover LTN scheme.
For many of us, the closing of the public toilets seemed like the last straw in a series of bad decisions and inept city management. Now we are told that the bike scheme has failed and will be closed down for the winter. What will be next?
Thanks, Billy, for perfectly encapsulating all that’s amiss wit this current ‘Green’ lack of an ‘Administration.’
It’s clearly apparent to most of the commentators on this thread that these ‘Green’ Councillors don’t appear to know their right hands from their left any better than they have the faintest idea of the harsh economic realities of running a city council, in the best of times never mind in this harsh economic climate, for the benefit of the MAJORITY of it’s citizens.
It must be equally apparent to all open-minded, free-thinking residents who don’t have a biased political axe to grind, that these same ‘Green’ Councillors are running out of ideas as quickly as they’re running out of money (our money) and have thus painted themselves into a corner.
Like cornered beasts they are therefore lashing out at any who criticise them in the slightest manner, little realising that most of those who do so are in fact offering CONSTRUCTIVE criticisms, so paranoid are they with their bunker mentality!
As the old saying goes: “There’s none so blind as he who will not see Nd none so deaf as she will not hear.
Aso, on a final note, could I please appeal to all our commentators on here to cut out the needless rudeness and glib assumptions that people are left-wing, right-wing or whatever other wing—it’s not about ISM’s—it’s about common sense versus NONsense when making public money stretch to meet the BASICS.
Nigel Furness
What a great comment you’ve made and along with several other commenters make great points.
I’m sorry to say that I do react to peoples rudeness, something I must try and avoid.
You’re a bit wordy as usual, Nigel, but you are right. This is not about politics at all, although some politically-skewed commentators would have it so. It is about delivering the very basic services that council taxpayers pay for and have a right to expect and which this council does not deliver and hasn’t for a long time.
The best thing Brighton could do was to invest in its own long range low power wireless system for all billing systems.
Standards like LoRa WAN (Wide Area Network) would probably work great for a bike share scheme and could be combined with parking meters etc.
The cost to blanket cover Brighton in LoRa WAN signals would be peanuts compared to a system where you have to pay monthly rental for a “SIM” card (eSim or standard SIM)
Since LoRa Wan run on low(er) frequencies – the range per transmitter is very high. Transfer speed is not high but that should not be needed for low volume transactions where all you need to communicate could be contained in < 256 bytes of data.
30-50 LoRa basestations would cover all of Brighton & Hove with high LoRa Bandwidth. Each station could cost < £1000-3000 in commercial versions – fully installed and provisioned. Each station/cell have about a 3km range in urban areas – compared to 5G's "few hundred meters" per "cell"
Yes it would have some issues initially with migration and figure out efficient data transfer methods. But the network would not have any huge monthly costs for "access" like SIM cards do – I don't think you can get a commercial SIM card with data licence for less than £2-3 per SIM per month.
And as Brighton mobile coverage is probably the 2nd worst I have ever experienced in the world – Brighton would not be relying on unreliable 4G/5G coverage.
And as said – an "owned" wide area network – can be used for many other purposes – like Council vehicle tracking, Emergency Alarms, traffic counters and many many other "low bandwidth" communications needs.
And it would not "time out" at network providers whim.
Thank you Mart Burt and thank you, Fed-up with Brighton Politics for your kind comments and I DO take the point that I can be a bit wordy sometimes so I shall endeavour, in future, to be abit more consice but there are so many issues that need raising!