Thread: Cycle hire
View Single Post
  #75   Report Post  
Old July 23rd 10, 08:53 AM posted to uk.transport.london
Mizter T Mizter T is offline
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity at LondonBanter: May 2005
Posts: 6,077
Default Cycle hire


On Jul 23, 9:22*am, David Walters wrote:

On Sun, 18 Jul 2010 07:36:48 -0500, wrote:
Hmm. That's what's confusing me. The keys are mentioned as available
separately for a £3 charge. No link there to membership. I wonder whether
businesses will be able to take out memberships for casual use by their
staff, for example?


Membership sign up is now available. You have to be 18 to be a member
but you can sign up for up to 4 keys, at £3 each, so I don't see why a
business couldn't have a collection of keys.

Once you have signed up if you opt for the £1/day version as I did it
seems you are actually charged when you hire a cycle.


Yes, I just signed up for the £1 a day version too (and before I'd
read your post so I'm not just a copy-cat!) - I wasn't expecting to be
able to do that at all, but was instead under the seemingly erroneous
impression that "membership" (with key) equalled 'annual subscription'
- looking at the press release you cited earlier in this thread I see
however that I didn't read it properly:

---quote---
Anyone will be able to sign up for a daily, weekly or annual
membership from 23 July at tfl.gov.uk/barclayscyclehire
---quote---
Source:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/16314.aspx


You can opt to auto-renew but I don't know why you would ever want to
do that. Even for the annual access charge you might as well only renew
it when you use it.


What's unclear is how key-holding members will reactivate their key
with a new access period - e.g. say I've got a key and want 7-day
access, will I have to go on-line first and 'order' that, or will I be
able to turn up at a docking station and sort it out - though I'm not
sure the latter will be possible as IIRC there's no key 'hole' in the
pay stations, just in each of the cycle docks themselves. So if one
just turns up with a key that doesn't have an 'live' access period/
membership associated with it will one even be able to just take a
bike and get 24-hour access - or will the key be no good unless it's
re-activated online? (I suspect the latter.)


Free T-Shirt for the first 1000 to sign up. I'm sure it will be a fetching
Barclays blue and help you blend in with the Cycle Superhighways nicely.


Lovely.