Richmond council asked for thoughts about shared e-bikes and e-scooters - here you go
How might the council, operator and rider act responsibly for the good of each other? Story 91
You wait for one transportation consultation to come along ..
Richmond council said they will be finalising their approach to shared e-bikes and e-scooters this Autumn, including decisions on the number of operators and parking management. They were
keen to hear fresh views, both positive and negative, particularly from those who have not previously expressed their opinions.
(Such) feedback is crucial in helping .. shape a balanced and effective approach.
Once again, this request comes before I am ready to commit. But I have some early thoughts. I will return to this topic in more detail. Until then, what follows is the unedited contribution to the council.
Scope
You need to label this the scope of this work more accurately. With talk of operators etc., it seems you mean shared e-bikes and e-scooters, such as those provided by Lime. You should say that at least once in your materials. Otherwise, I will keep thinking you are talking about my e-bike. There are a lot across the borough - they now form 5% of total UK bike fleet. In what follow, e-bikes means just shared e-bikes unless stated otherwise.
What does good look like?
I have read and understand the the principles highighted at the start of your Transport Strategy briefing deck and the travel-related sections of your Climate and Nature Strategy. The latter has several transport-specific detail. It is bike-postive plan rather than car-negative. More than that it is particularly keen on cargo-bikes. The show at the Old Deer Park last weekend was excellent but even if that is a successful way point to becoming the ‘cargo bike capital of London’, many more people will use shared e-bikes. They are are more probably important than cargo bikes. Your strategies and plans need to reflect that.
The shift in mode share from 61 to 75% is the framing target for any of your plans. You need residents to understand this means a long-term change in the how road space is allocated. In the last twenty years pedestrians, buses, and bikes have all garnered a a greater slice. Since Covid, e-bikes have joined that list of demands.
To make the mode-shift, the outer boroughs, like Richmond, need to be more like the inner boroughs in transport terms. How do the zone one areas approach e-bikes? Richmond should - broadly - adopt that approach and then apply intelligently. Barnes in the north of the borough is already more like a inner borough. It’s e-bike provision should reflect that. Elsewhere greater emphasis might be placed on better trains and buses.
Related to this, Richmond borough should lead on discussing harmonising policies and regulations on e-bikes - not just scooters - across the city and City. London is unique for its size in allowing each of the 32 boroughs (and City) to develop a discrete set of policies.
E-bikes are important for teenage and young Londoners. This should influence your decision-making. The transport proposals in the Climate Strategy are so light on car-management, you need to compensate by being assertive with residents under the age of 35, including teenagers. (Only a slight exaggeration - at times reading and listening to councillors it seems Richmond council have decided to wait for this generation of car drivers to die). If you can lock bike-use - private or shared - into the weekly habits at this age, then the mode shift will happen eventually even if later than desired.
Finally, I think you should use Barnes and Mortlake as an experimental area for a post-peak car transport ecosystem. The area is limbo, waiting on someone (else) to fund a restored Bridge. You should re-read your Cimate strategy scenarios again, think about life in 2050 and work out how to use parts of the borough to experiment with a new transport mix. It is essential to start creating a new transport network that accommodates these alternative modes of transportation and remixes the old. This is another reason near zone one-density of bikes and scooters to ensure accessibility and convenience for residents and visitors alike.
Operational rules
The optimum number of operators is difficult for a resident to judge. Beyond the benefits of basic competition—such as better equipment and fair pricing—what people want is consistent, reliable availability. If that can be delivered by two operators, that’s absolutely fine. That said, it was interesting to see Bolt, a recent entrant to the London market this summer, position themselves as managing poor user behaviour more effectively, with measures like AI-powered parking, mandatory end-of-ride photos, and user fines. The minimum service standard provided should be improving year on year, given the relative immaturity of the market. It might require new entrants to achieve that.
Richmond council should look to adopt TfL practices to geo-gencing. I notice Merton Council have taken this approach. Their new agreement with Lime and Forest ‘will address poorly parked electric bikes and help to keep .. pavements clear and accessible for everyone. The agreement, which came into force on Monday, means that Lime and Forest users in the borough can only end their journey in designated physical or virtual parking bays’. New to me, this is called the compulsary bay-only parking model.
The key here is not to restrict parking options so much as to throttle the use of e-bikes. Merton seems to have settled on making e-bikes only use cycle stands. This seems too restrictive. Richmond Council need to trial a more generous approach making real or virtual bays no more than say three minutes walk from a home, review progress and then adjust accordingly.
There should be a more dynamic management regime for redistributing bikes. There is one noticeable hotspot in Barnes and Mortlake - it stretches from outside the Watermans pub, riverside to the edge of the pond. I walk and bike past every day, usually several times. There is no logical rhythm to the clearing the regular clusters of Lime bikes.
I can see the physical integration with the wider network is underway. e-bikes can be spotted at all the local railway stations. There are more bike stands near bus stops: they attrack Lime bikes, especially. Richmond council should now work with TfL to secure digital integration. I saw a guest recently try to rent a Lime with her Oyster card. Manchester are looking to do this with their Bee nework. Integration needs to work from the user perspective, not just the planner's.
Consumer protection
Your climate strategy talks about offering ‘affordable rentals of standard, electric, and cargo bikes’. A good move. I would extend this to one demographic, teenagers. Use the parent or guardian as guarantor and charge against the Oyster card. Again, encourage sustainable travel amongst the youngest part of our population as investment in future behaviour.
I have seen in both Germany and Lyon, adapted e-bikes used successfully for those with mobility challenges. I saw an adaptive scooter in Hamburg and a trike in Lyon. We should at least trial such bikes in the borough.
Infrastructure
As the redistribution of road space gathers apace - the direction of travel is by now clear - there should be more emphasis placed on the user experince of where bikes (inclduing all e-bikes) and cars meet on the road network. It is no longer acceptable to say the options are segregated lanes, paint or shared lanes. If the uptake of shared bikes continues in the borough especially in the main towns and the north of borough and reaches something like inner borough level, the council needs to look to how some streets are wilfully designed as low speed streets where two and four wheels are treated equally. There are ideas aplenty in Europe.
There is a need on or around Barnes High Street for more dedicated parking spaces for e-bikes. Whatever the current plan, it is not working. Of courst if virtual parking becomes possible, this is much easier - and cheaper - to do.
Enforcement
Many of the ‘fake e-bikes’ which cause residents aggravation are unregulated. With no speed limits they are electric motorbikes. They are like pot holes - everyone sees them but appear to accept nothing can be done about them. Given a choice, I would focus scarce resource on managing those.
Richmond council should adopt the same practice as TfL and hold the operators to account for their fleet management. This week Lime and Forest were fined a record £30,000 for abandoned bikes. (This is not a punitive amount: the operators can likely write off as a marketing expense. But there is a sense this is just the start of a process by TfL.) This change in approach affected only the red routes. What is our equivalent of the red routes? Richmond, Twickenham, Barnes town centres? Again, ‘land and expand’. Target one area and then learn from how the system works best before applying more widely.
The Merton approach - the most interesting I could find having explored how neighbouring boroughs manage e-bikes - includes useful enforcement provisions, which Richmond could look to adopt:
any e-bikes parked out side the real or virtual bay can be flagged to the operator
if the operator doesn’t remove, the council can move and recharge cost plus to the operator
riders who break rules will receive financial penalists
Management of data
I have no operational knowledge about your data infrastructure or the related technical standards. I wonder if that is the operational reason for there being no shared data source on e-bike useage patterns?
They are an important part of the transport mix so should be expected to share data in the same way trains, buses do. As things stand the TfL API provides a glimpse of bike use but that is for Santander Cycles. Lime do not share. Forest have a live map but it does not breakdown into boroughs and does not allow even simple pattern analysis. In the spirit of best practical digital first governement, Richmond should push for useful open shared data
Given the public concern, it would be good understand the scale of physical harm caused by ebikes and escooters. Do you have the ‘crash data’? I cannot find data anywhere on your website or the wider internet. We need to it to place the wider safety concerns into context.
If you are not already caught up, you might be interested in the e-bike soundtrack of the summer.