Path well-travelled: Shared cycle scheme succeeding

In the early hours of a July morning, firefighters shut down Edinburgh’s Princes Street as they tackled a blaze in a historic building, originally the Palace Hotel and, more recently, the site of a Debenhams until 2021.  

Images showed flames licking from the windows and smoke billowing across the city centre. In the aftermath, the road between Frederick Street and South Charlotte Street, a vital artery for the city’s bus and tram network, remained closed to ensure the building’s safety and preserve its historic features.  

This caused a problem for many people living in the north of Edinburgh who rely on trams and buses to commute into and through the city centre. Mark, who lives near Ocean Terminal in Leith, says his commute to work, which is near Haymarket train station, went from a 30-minute tram journey and a short walk to a bus journey of around an hour at peak travel times.  

He recalls sitting on a bus that “was crawling up George Street”, where many services had been diverted, and thinking there had to be a quicker way to get to work. Mark had seen people using the cycle routes along Leith Walk and through much of the city centre, many of them on Voi’s shared e-bikes.

“I don’t own a bike, and apart from some cycling during the pandemic I had never really cycled on roads,” he says.  

But when a friend who was also experiencing similar travel disruption encouraged him to try the city’s new e-bike hire scheme and sent him a referral code, which included a free journey, he tried it. 

“The first time I used them was coming home from work because it was mainly downhill. I was nervous at first, but I remember parking up, taking my phone out of my pocket to end the ride, and the timer just hitting 30 minutes – which was probably slightly quicker than I was getting to the office on the tram – and thinking, ‘that was quite easy’.” 

Princes Street reopened in late August and the trams between Newhaven and Edinburgh Airport began running again, but Mark has continued to predominantly cycle to work using the shared scheme. “When the weather gets worse over the winter and the nights get longer I will definitely be using the tram again, but for now I’ll be using Voi; they are quicker, and I feel like I get a decent workout without turning up to work in a sweat,” he says.  

It’s clear that the first year of the trial scheme has been a big success in Edinburgh. As of September, over 1.5 million journeys were made using Voi. And according to CycleScotland, which collects data on cycling journeys across Scotland’s eight cities, during a 48-hour survey period in May, it recorded 5,653 bike journeys on Leith Walk, accounting for 11 per cent of all journeys on the route. 

Another headline finding was that between 8am and 9am on 13 May, the busiest period of the morning commute, more bikes than cars were counted. This is the first time this has happened on an on-street cycle route in Edinburgh, according to CycleScotland data.  

The permanent cycle counter at Picardy Place, which connects Leith Walk to the city centre, shows an even clearer growth trend. Cycle journeys exceeded 67,500 in May this year compared to the previous May, which saw 54,000 – an increase of around 20 per cent. 

Similarly, on Glasgow’s South City Way, the active travel corridor connecting Queen’s Park and the city centre, 5,637 bike journeys were recorded on Victoria Road over 48 hours in May, a 38 per cent increase on the previous year.

On the same road, cycling accounted for over 16 per cent of all journeys, which was the highest modal share ever recorded on an urban street in Scotland. And, like Leith Walk, more bikes than cars being recorded during rush-hour peaks has become an established travel pattern. 

Glasgow City Council’s own statistics show that cycling trips across the whole city have risen by 74 per cent since August 2024. 

While at the moment there is no data to suggest that the Voi bikes scheme is the reason for the increase, Glasgow has also seen a tremendous uptake since it was introduced in November last year, with more than 1.6 million journeys recorded – around 10 per cent of Glasgow’s overall cycling journeys recorded in the period.  

Both cities have invested heavily in protected cycling infrastructure and active travel networks over the past decade, but the timing of the recent surge in journeys has inevitably drawn attention to the arrival of Voi’s e-bike hire schemes. 

Stephen Jenkinson, who convenes Edinburgh City Council’s transport and environment committee, believes the introduction of Voi has played a significant role in the increase in active travel, pointing to the contrast between last year’s figures and this year’s results.  

“Last year, the CyclingScotland survey showed that cycling was going pretty flat. This year we’ve seen cycling journeys are going up quickly, so I think the delta between this year and last is probably the cycle hire scheme.”  

It feels like Scotland’s two largest cities are late to the party with their shared cycle schemes, particularly as they have been a feature in cities like London for over 15 years. However, both Edinburgh and Glasgow have had previous schemes, but neither achieved the number of journeys seen in the first year of Voi.  

In 2018, Edinburgh introduced the Edinburgh Cycle Hire Scheme, which was operated by Serco under the Just Eat Cycles brand. Despite having over 70,000 registered users, only half a million journeys were clocked up over the three years – a third of the journeys taken in the first year on the new scheme. At its peak, it had around 600 conventional bikes and 150 e-bikes that needed to be parked in charging docks stationed across the city.  

The initial scheme became financially unsustainable due to high levels of theft, vandalism and maintenance costs, with bikes frequently damaged, stolen or dumped. At one stage, around a quarter of the fleet required repairs each week. Although it was originally intended to operate at no cost to the council, later reports suggested it ultimately cost around £1.8m, while officials estimated that keeping the scheme running would have required a subsidy of around £500,000 a year plus more than £1m of investment in improved security measures. In the case of the current schemes in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Voi owns and operates the service at no cost to the councils. Its employees charge and maintain the bikes, altering bike stock levels depending on usage data. In the case of Edinburgh, council workers meet with the service provider weekly to discuss what is going well and what needs to be altered. 

Both Jenkinson and the convener of Glasgow City Council’s transport committee, Angus Millar, believe there are various reasons the current cycle scheme has been so successful. 

Millar tells Holyrood the Voi bikes have “definitely been part of the story” of why cycling has become so popular in the city. 

“It gives people who don’t have a bike of their own a way to use the cycle infrastructure we have been building. With them being e-bikes, there is an added level of convenience, and when you add in the safe infrastructure it’s clear more people are choosing to use them for short journeys,” he says. 

Jenkinson says part of the reason for the scheme’s popularity is that people have seen similar schemes working well in other UK and European cities.

“The other big game-changer has been on the technology side of the bikes themselves and how you interact with them,” he says. “It’s fairly seamless, it’s quick and easy, and e-bikes also make sense in a hilly city.” 

Bikes can be accessed either by scanning a QR code on a bike or by locating and unlocking one through the app. Users connect their bank details to the app and the cost of the trip is calculated based on minutes used. Voi determines the price in each city. In Edinburgh, there is a 49p unlock charge and a minute costs 11p, while in Glasgow it’s free to unlock and 16p per minute. There are also various minutes bundles that can be purchased aimed at saving money for users who use the service often. At the end of the journey, bikes must be parked in an approved parking location and the user is required to upload a photograph before they can end their ride. 

Jenkinson explains how the use of data is leading the service, which is now operational in over 100 European cities, to know when batteries need to be replaced and if extra bikes are needed in certain areas. “These companies [that supply the bikes] are technology companies rather than a bike service. They’ve got data coming out of their ears, such as where they are being parked, how often a bike is used, how long a journey is from A to B.  

“All of that information is being used to manage the demand and ultimately to deliver the service. They have the stock to deliver additional bikes overnight if needed.” 

He adds: “This is related to the number of bikes and rides, but from Voi’s own mouth – and it operates these services right across Europe – this has been the most successful rollout of a cycle hire scheme ever. So far, it’s been a rip-roaring success.” 

While few have questioned the popularity of the scheme itself, some groups have raised concerns about how it interacts with public space. Prior to the launch of Voi, Living Streets Edinburgh warned that dockless bike-hire schemes can create particular difficulties for disabled and visually impaired pedestrians if bikes are left obstructing pavements. The organisation supported bike hire in principle but argued that cycling infrastructure and parking should not come at the expense of walking space. 

Similar concerns were raised earlier this year by Chas Booth, a Green councillor, who highlighted reports of bikes being left on footways, obstructing pedestrians and disabled people, and taking up existing cycle parking spaces. However, Booth described the scheme as a positive addition to the city and called for improvements rather than its removal. 

Jenkinson explains the bikes rely on GPS and geo-fencing, which prevents someone from ending a journey outside of designated parking areas, which the council has agreed with the operator.  

Mark Shields, head of policy at Walk Wheel Cycle Trust, adds that his organisation “hasn’t encountered too much backlash in terms of pavements being impeded”. 

Glasgow and Edinburgh are furthest ahead in the development of cycle networks, while Scotland’s other cities have been investing in their cycle and wheeling infrastructure at
various paces.  

Shields says that Glasgow and Edinburgh are “leading the way” in making the infrastructure “less like islands”. Elsewhere, he says it’s a “mixed picture”, where there are fewer dedicated resources in cities like Aberdeen and Perth. However, he maintains there is “a shared ambition across the local authorities”. “It is to be expected that they are all at different stages of delivery,” Shields says. 

He, along with the transport conveners in Edinburgh and Glasgow, is critical of the Scottish Government for failing to meet what was close to a cross-party Holyrood consensus in 2021 that 10 per cent of the transport budget should be allocated to active travel. The most recent Scottish budget allocated to walking, wheeling and cycling programmes and infrastructure is just 5.3 per cent. 

Both Edinburgh and Glasgow have set targets to reduce car travel by 30 per cent by 2030, reflecting a wider shift towards active and sustainable transport. However, Millar says the council is not seeing evidence that the shared e-bike scheme has translated into fewer people using cars in the cities yet.  

“We are at the beginning of the transition towards active travel in Glasgow. We are still not seeing the reduction in overall car usage that we would like to see, but we are a fast-growing city. We are seeing phenomenal growth in terms of cycle numbers, but that doesn’t necessarily correspond to a reduction in car numbers yet.  

“We need to see how the £2 bus cap goes, and how that impacts people’s transport options. Really all we can do as the council is provide people with options and promote the availability of different modes of transport.” 

The jury is still out on whether schemes such as Voi will help Glasgow and Edinburgh meet their targets to reduce car use. What the data does suggest, though, is that shared e-bikes are persuading some people to travel differently.

Commuters like Mark, who continues to cycle to work despite tram services returning to normal, suggest that more people are beginning to see active travel as a practical way of getting from A to B.