On 12 Feb, 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 13:31:26 on
Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Paul Scott remarked:

"Passengers will be able to hire the South West Trains' branded Brompton
bicycles from our Lost Property Office at Waterloo station...

I wonder what guarantees the hirers will have to make. I note that a
recent similar scheme in Paris resulted in 7,800 bikes being stolen and
a further 11,600 being 'vandalised' from a pool of only 20,000.

(Yes that's just 600 unscathed)

The promoters are apparently "struggling to fund the scheme" and said
"we underestimated the degree of damage [the bikes] would suffer".


Was that a completely free hire scheme? I'd need to know more details
about both it and how SWT's scheme might work post-trial to make
comparisons. Note that the three month trial appears to only be open
to SWT season ticket holders.

With regards to the underlying point, any prospective city cycle hire
scheme does of course need to take full account of the realities when
it comes to planning how the scheme will work.

I wonder how well an alternative idea would go down - that of SWT
arranging to store the folding bikes of season-ticket holding
commuters at Waterloo for collection and drop-off that are owned by
those commuters?