Serco doing their bit for cycle hire scheme

Serco, the international service company that manages the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme, has added new vehicles to its London fleet to help to improve the flow and availability of bikes.

The scheme provides access to cycle hire across London, with a total of 11,000 bikes and 756 docking stations. It has grown in popularity and scale since it was first rolled out in 2010, with the addition of a further 150 new docking stations and over 2,000 new bikes in December 2013.

The expansion of the scheme has led to six new Fiat Ducato vans being added to the fleet, provided by Zenith, one of the UK’s leading independent leasing, fleet management and outsourcing providers. The vans will be used to move the bikes around London and maintain adequate stock levels, with each van modified to carry 18 bikes. Serco is also currently trialling an electric van, a Nissan e-NV200, as one of its 50 cycle hire servicing and maintenance vans.

Jeremy Wormington, operations director at Serco comments: “The new vehicles have been rolled out following analysis of previous bike usage and it is hoped that they will further improve the flow of cycles around London. It has been great to see the scheme grow in popularity and expand considerably over the last four years. Zenith has provided us with support and advice in identifying our commercial vehicle fleet requirements and throughout the electric trial. We hope that the next step will be to use electric vehicles as part of the fleet on a permanent basis.”