Record number of rides on Scottish bike share schemes

SCOTLAND is taking to the idea of shared bike usage as the number of daily rides hit a yearly record last year.

A new report by the national shared transport charity Collaborative Mobility UK (CoMoUK) shows that bike share schemes recorded more than 500,000 hires between September 2022 and September 2023, an average of 1,470 per day.

The average number of hires was up from 1,326 recorded the previous year, despite the overall number of bike share schemes across Scotland falling from seven to five.

The annual report, which surveyed more than 300 active users, also shows how bike share schemes can:

• boost people’s physical and mental health;
• save them money;
• and reduce the number of driven car miles while also benefiting the environment.

It also highlights that Scotland is lagging far behind the UK on the provision of e-bikes, with the number available to bike share users falling from 619 to 528 over the past year.

By contrast, across the UK as a whole there are now more than 25,000 e-bikes on the road, more than double the 12,000 available to users in 2022.

Key findings from the report include:

• A huge majority (84 per cent) said using shared bikes boosted their mental health, with 93 per cent also agreeing that it provided them with exercise.
• Almost three quarters (71 per cent) said they were saving money by using bike share schemes, while 85 per cent said it removed the worry of their own bike being stolen.
• More than a fifth of users (21 per cent) have a personal income of £20,000 or less, demonstrating how such schemes can make active travel accessible to all.
• Bike sharing led to a reduction of 1,408 tonnes of carbon emissions in Scotland by replacing 5.2 million car miles over the course of the year.
• Almost a quarter (23 per cent) of users said they would have used a car for their last bike share trip if the service had not been available.
• Bike sharing is predominantly used for short to medium-range trips, with almost two thirds of users (63 per cent) estimating that their last journey was between one and three miles.