One of the common sights you see throughout the city of London are the frequent use of rental bikes with blue logos. These bikes, referred to as Barclays Cycle Hire, are part of a program that is a public bicycle sharing scheme, launched in 2010 within Greater London. The scheme's bicycles are informally referred to as Boris bikes, after Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. The cycle hire opened operations in July 2010 with 5,000 bicycles and 315 docking stations distributed across the City of London and parts of eight London boroughs, with a coverage zone spanning approximately 17 square miles. Currently, there are some 6,000 bikes and 400 docking stations throughout the city in the BCH scheme, which has been used for more than 4 million journeys to date and has drastically changed the way Londeners move around the city.
Initially, BCH required initial payment of registration and membership fees to be paid in exchange for an electronic access key, but in December 2010 this was changed to allow casual cycle hires by non-members who have a valid credit card. The project is expected to cost the city £140 million ($231 million) for planning and implementation over six years, and is hoped to be the only Transport for London system to fully fund its annual cost of operation, a goal originally estimated to take two to three years. As you can see, the scheme is sponsored by Barclays bank, which is contributing £25 million (18% of the scheme's total cost) over five years to the project's funding, along with launching a free mobile app called Barclays Bikes. All the bikes and the docking stations are built in Canada and are based on the Bixi cycle rental system that operates in Montreal.
Like most successful projects, credit for developing and enacting the Barclays bicycle share scheme has been a source of controversy. London mayor Boris Johnson claimed credits for the plan, although the initial concept was announced by Johnson's predecessor Ken Livingstone, during the latter's term in office. Johnson has said that he "hoped the bikes would become as common as black cabs and red buses in the capital". Recently, more criticism made some news, as Johnson decided to extend Barclays' sponsorship of London's bike hire scheme without fresh corporate competition. The mayor announced that Barclays would sponsor the bikes for a further three years up to 2018. But some are questioning whether the bank is paying enough and says the sponsorship should be put out to a new competitive tender process in 2015 as originally planned. Added in the new deal was sponsorship of a new cycle superhighway (a costly project that will connect outer boroughs of London) and a guaranteed expansion of the scheme to East london in time for the Olympics. Barclays bank will contribute another £25 million for the deal.
Map of Bike Docking Stations