Bike hire facilities rolled out across Abellio’s rail franchises

Waveney MP Peter Aldous launches the Bike & Go facility at Lowestoft this week with Greater Anglia’s Laura Englestone

Waveney MP Peter Aldous launches the Bike & Go facility at Lowestoft this week with Greater Anglia’s Laura Englestone

Train operator Abellio has launched bike hire facilities at more than 40 stations across its three franchises – Northern Rail, Greater Anglia and Merseyrail.

Bike & Go is modelled on the OV Fiets system installed at stations in the Netherlands by Dutch state rail operator NS. Abellio is the international arm of NS. Funding for the facilities has come from the DfT and the train operators themselves.

After registering at bikeandgo.co.uk and paying an annual subscription of £10, users receive a smartcard, which they can take to a station ticket office to obtain a key giving access to a bike. Bikes can be hired for £3.80 for 24 hours with a  maximum hire of 72 hours. Bikes must be returned to the station from where the hire was made, generally during station ticket office opening hours. 

Bike & Go facilities at more than 20 Northern stations went live this month, along with further facilities on the Greater Anglia network. The first facilities were installed on Merseyrail and in Greater Anglia last August.

The system is now available at 43 stations: 

North East and Yorkshire: Almouth, Barnsley, Beverley, Bradford Interchange, Halifax, Harrogate, Leeds, Meadowhall, Rotherham, Shipley and Wakefield. 

North West and Merseyside: Aintree, Altrincham, Blackburn, Blackpool North, Buxton, Ellesmere Port, Formby, Hooton, Knutsford, Liverpool Central, Liverpool South Parkway, Maghull, Morecambe, New Brighton, Ormskirk, Rochdale, Southport, St Helens Central, Todmorden, West Kirby, Wigan Wallgate, Wilmslow, and Whitehaven. 

Anglia & South East: Bishops Stortford, Clacton-on-Sea, Colchester, Ely, Enfield Town, Manningtree, Harold Wood, Romford, Lowestoft and Southend Victoria. 

Facilities are soon to be installed at a further seven:  Hebden Bridge, Hexham, London Liverpool Street, Stowmarket, Great Yarmouth, Ipswich and Chelmsford. Seven more stations on the Merseyrail network will receive facilities before the end of the calendar year. 

Merseyrail is managing the project. Andrew Bristow, Bike & Go’s project manager, told LTT that ten bikes were provided at every station, with the exception of Liverpool Central (five) and Hebden Bridge (four). All the bikes have seven gears.

Bristow said population demographics and the presence of facilities such as universities, colleges and leisure centres had been used to inform decisions on where to locate facilities. He said the operator had hoped to install bikes in stations in Manchester city centre but had been unable to reach agreement with the relevant stakeholders.  

An App will soon be launched to inform people how many bikes are available for hire at each station in real-time.

Abellio will monitor usage over the summer months to see if more bikes are needed at any stations. A reservation scheme may be considered, said Bristow.

He said over 250 people had become members since the first facilities were launched last year. A publicity campaign is  planned and Abellio is hoping to sell memberships to companies.

Bristow said enquiries had been received about rolling out Bike & Go to locations other than at Abellio rail stations. Enquiries had come from another train operator, local authorities and a charity.  

“Do we want to move to the next level? That’s what we’ll be asking ourselves but we’ve got to get the basics right first,” he said. “It’s also got to be viable for us.”

Discuss this initiative at LTT's Cycle City Event in Leeds on 1-2 May