Herefordshire Council's Story
In summer 2019, Herefordshire Council worked with Beryl to launch a bike share scheme in Hereford.
The scheme launched on the 29th of July 2019 with an initial roll-out of 70 bicycles across the city and 39 marked bays. There are now 200 pedal bikes and 30 electric bikes available for everyday travel, business and pleasure trips across the city. The scheme has 12,470 registered users.
To hire a bike, people register on the Beryl app and then pick up a bike from one of the marked bays across the City. Ending a ride is as simple, people park in a convenient bay, close the lock and go on their way. The Beryl app shows the locations of bikes so it's easy to find the nearest available bike and bay.
Across the operating area, 95% of people live within 5 minute's walk of a bay.
Riders can choose between various payment options including Pay-As-You-Go, Minute Bundles or Day Passes, 24 hours of unlimited riding. Once their ride is complete, users simply close the lock on the bike to complete their ride and make it available for the next person to use.
The bikes have a step-through design suitable for riders from 4'11" to 6'5" and are fitted with Beryl's Laserlight that projects an image of a bike onto the road making the bikes more visible at night and forewarning drivers of the rider's presence.
The introduction of e-bikes has been very successful in supporting more people to try cycling and enabling people to cycle for longer journeys. The e-bikes are averaging three to four journeys per day.
Useful Learnings from Herefordshire Council
The bike share scheme implemented by the Council's delivery partner was launched in July 2019 and has been very successful, enabling affordable and convenient access to sustainable travel. To date over 152,439 local journeys have been made, covering over 379,991km.
Working closely with Beryl Bikes was critical in enabling this project to be developed.
The use of a local bike-based courier company (Pedicargo) to redistribute the bikes and another (Bike Hub) to maintain the bikes has also increased the sustainability of this project.
Locally, this is seen as a "community project" which significantly benefits the City. The incidence of vandalism and theft has been incredibly low. The Council continues to work with Beryl to provide new promotions to engage with even more potential riders.
Herefordshire Council's Metrics
Number of journeys made using the bike scheme (152,439).
Number of registered users (12,470).
Number of kilometres travelled (379,991).
