The new electric hire bike scheme which launches in Brighton today charges riders 15p a minute – equivalent to £9 an hour – plus a £1 unlocking fee.
Beryl Bikes were awarded the £13 million contract by Brighton and Hove City Council to run the scheme, which when up and running fully will include a mix of push bikes and electric bikes.
Today, the smartphone app through which riders book bikes only shows tariffs for electric bikes – which at 15p a minute plus would cost £4 for a 20 minute ride, or £2.50 for a 10 minute one.
The scheme, which is now named Beryl BTN Bikes, will initially include 75 e-bikes operating from 19 hubs along the seafront and routes to Brighton and Hove stations. This will increase to 125 during this first phase.
Further phases will see the rollout of the rest of the fleet of 468 e-bikes and 312 pedal only bikes to create a total fleet of 780 bikes, nearly 200 more than the previous scheme.
Brighton and Hove City Council will also consult on 15 new hubs to extend the scheme’s coverage across the city.
When the scheme’s relaunch was announced, Councillor Jamie Lloyd, member of the of the Environment, Transport and Sustainability committee said: “Getting on a bike is a proven way to improve your physical and mental health and Beryl BTN Bikes make hiring one quick, easy and affordable.”
Phil Ellis, CEO and cofounder of Beryl, which has been awarded the contract to start the schem, said: “Our vehicles are not only good for the environment, they’re also fun, easy to use and cost-effective, removing the need for vehicle ownership expenses such as fuel, tax, MOT, storage and maintenance.
“We hope that, from the launch of the first phase later this month, the scheme will encourage as many people as possible to switch to more sustainable transport.”
The scheme first launched in August 2017, when Hourbike was awarded the contract to run it.
When the contract was retendered last year at a value of between £13 and 14 million, the council tweaked the proposed terms to require that some of the fleet should be made of electric bikes.
Meanwhile, both the bikes and the communications technology used by the Hourbike scheme – which relied on patchy 3G mobile coverage – were becoming too old and so its bikes were pulled from the road in December before the new contract was finalised.
Good grief. What a racket, £9 an hour!! Get these buffoons out of office, one last money gain before we vote the imbeciles out.
Much less unaffordable than the previous suggestion.
https://archive.is/lsv7a
I rather liked the Brighton Bike scheme when it first started, not least because it was reasonably affordable.
We now hear that those original 500 bikes had to be scrapped, because the logging on system relied on the 3G network which is being discontinued.
So that’s a loss to the tax payer of the millions we paid for those bikes in the first place.
Now we have given a further 13million to a company who also take the hire fees for these E-bikes, and we are told there will be more E-bikes than standard pedal bikes.
The new company CEO claims renting these bikes at £9 or £10 per hour somehow justifiable because it competes with the costs of owning a car. And never mind that £10 will get you several journeys on a bus.
We do have to wonder here, if the original idea for the bike scheme has gone out of the window?
It’s not clear to me how E-bikes are part of an ‘active travel’ policy, or indeed how truly green they really are. Surely this is just us council tax payers funding another short-lifespan commercial toy as a seafront attraction?
And the council have chosen to spend this money at a time while the public toilets remain closed due to lack of funds.
What am I missing here?
So the eBikes are supposed to be competitive with owning a car at 15p per minute (with the risk of £10 or £20 fines for taking them outside the city).
My car can transport my family and goods, in all weathers, in air-conditioned comfort, rapidly, from outside my house to almost any destination, when I want it, for about 15p per mile.
I can also walk, or catch a bus for £2 a journey or £5 all day.
The more I hear about eBikes and especially rental costs, the less likely I am to use them instead of anything else.
I currently e bike from Mile Oak to the city centre everyday for work. It’s about half an hour each way – so to rent a bike would be £9 a day! Plus as I would park it in Mile Oak a further £10. Honestly this is ridiculous. Why as well did the administration prevent Beryl from introducing e scooters? This was in the consultation. To get people out of cars all forms of transport should be embraced. This bike or bust policy is a total bust.
Well if I was to ride to work each day, 5days a week 48 weeks a year (4 weeks holiday) that would cost me £2,400 or adult bus ticket for a year £805.50. Humm
Article is little disingenuous with its reporting. The 15p per min charge applies to a one off ride. There is another tariff that charges less if you pay upfront. It looks like the scheme will be aimed at tourists as the bike bays are situated near the seafront. If anything at least the cycle lanes will get used.
You could buy a reasonably priced ebike for about a grand, get the bus ticket and still save. Also, I imagine that during periods of more demand you may have a difficulty even renting one.
I did check if there were any other options before posting this and I’ve gone back and double checked. It’s true you can buy bundles of minutes, but these are still priced at 15p a minute, and there’s still an unlock fee for electric bikes. No other options are available in Brighton right now.
So council spends £13/14m on this vanity scheme while pleading poverty and allowing vital services go to rack and ruin, closing public toilets etc, weeds on the pavements , removing disabled and other parking spaces and letting the town become a dirty,graffiti scarred mess. Vote the bike-obsessed Green zealots out.