The London Bicycle Hire scheme launched last Friday and there are reports that there were more than few Boris Bike blips. In fact Transport for London is to make refunds to people who used the bikes last week.
It’s estimated that about 6,000 rides were made on Friday but many cyclists struggled to lock or unlock the bikes at the docking stations. As the docking stations are used to record the hire time many journey times have been incorrectly recorded. One user who didn’t actually ride a bike because he couldn’t get the bike out of the docking station said the system reckoned he’d had the bike for 11 hours.
Due to the difficulties TfL says it will waive journey fares for everyone who used the blue bicycles on the launch day. Most of the journeys were under 30 minutes and are therefore free anyway.
There are 400 central London docking stations offering a total Boris Bike count of 6,000. Made in Canada at a cost of around £850 it was presumed that the bikes would be targeted by thieves but none of the bikes have yet to be reported as stolen.
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