Bournemouth’s new Beryl bike sharing service launched successfully on Monday 17 June.
The new bike sharing service launched last week as part of a partnership between BCP Council and Beryl that will eventually see 1,000 bikes operating from 120-plus bays across the entire conurbation.
Launch day saw 50 of the distinctive green bikes placed at key locations across the area such as Bournemouth and Poole’s train stations and town centres.
No service is available in Christchurch for the time being but discussions are in place to extend the scheme.
BH Living visited Bournemouth Station on Tuesday morning and there were just two bikes available. We also checked out the town centre – there were none on Westover Road nor in the Gardens so the bikes are obviously being used but it seems until the scheme is expanded to the one thousand bikes quoted, there may well be a shortage of bikes in the town. This should represent good news, in the short term, for civic leaders who are keen to see people taking to pedal power.
Charlie Bristow, media representative for Beryl said: “We’re really excited to see so many rides early on – it definitely exceeded our expectations.
“We’ve had lots of positive feedback from riders who have shared photos and videos of their rides as well as feedback on the bike.
The bikes will be left to move around organically for the foreseeable to see where they end up, in the hope that they will settle in the most popular places.
However, Beryl say they are ready to redistribute bikes if they end up in locations that are not of use to other riders.
Anonymous data from every trip logged on the app will be used to dictate where new bays and bikes are placed.
Beryl will initially roll out the new bikes rapidly, but they will be done in manageable blocks in order to allow any problems that may arise to be dealt with as they come up.
The majority of the roll out is scheduled to happen by mid-August.
Visit Beryl for more information.