One of Europe’s largest e-bike sharing businesses, Lime, says that 60% of its users will tend to cycle more trips, more often once they have begun using the service.
Critically, women have historically felt less comfortable cycling, but electric bike schemes like Lime’s report a 73% greater appetite to cycle in this demographic. 24% of female users of Lime’s electric bikes say that they have never cycled before the availability of the shared bikes locally.
Since January of 2019 through to March 2023 Lime says that it has hosted over 12 million electric bike trips, contributing to a modal shift that is in part also driven by congestion in the city, an increasingly unreliable train service and the increasing costs of public transport. More than that, in its Sustainability Report, Lime says research of its riders has illustrated the power of safe cycle lanes, with 33% of its users stating they will cycle more often where segregated bike lanes or traffic calmed conditions exist.
Build it and they will come
Infrastructure is key to increased ridership, that’s nothing new and proven the world over, but for Lime it’s more complex. The sharing scheme’s main public criticism is that the e-bikes can end up parked badly, much down to the free-flowing nature and convenience that drives share schemes.
In fact, 50% of the firm’s users say they will not walk more than 2 minutes to pick up a bike, illustrating just how tightly the scheme’s success hinges on convenience. With that in mind, Lime intends to increase the density of city parking locations, betting that the sweet spot is 25 parking locations needed per sq. km. Generally, 27% of Lime riders would ride more if the e-bike sharing scheme had a larger footprint.
The rules around parking are a burden for riders too, with 22% of the e-bike sharing firm’s users wishing there was greater consistency borough to borough; this is something that Lime has to thrash out with TfL and individual boroughs as it hopes to eventually bring about standardised rules across the whole of London.
As it stands there can be different regulations one side of a borough border to the next, turning some riders off trips of distance and thus feeding into congestion elsewhere. In crunching its numbers, Lime says that 8% of its customers would otherwise have taken to a private vehicle, taxi or car club without nearby availability, which it says has removed 1 million car trips in the aforementioned time period. That’s calculated as a carbon saving equivalent to the planting of 12,000 trees.
In London, where ULEZ (ultra-low emissions zone) has become a political hot potato, there exists a scrappage scheme whereby traders can exchange vans for electric cargo bikes in a further bid to drive down emissions and congestion.
Another political hot potato comes with the notion that cyclists may bring less economic benefits than drivers. As has been proven previously, the reverse is true and Lime riders feel that the availability of bikes have improved access to workplaces and shopping centres; one in four riders believe the share bikes have a positive economic impact. Previously it has been calculated that cycle parking delivers five times higher retail spend per square metre used than car parking spaces with consumers also more likely to spend longer in town centres.