Inside Lime’s 24-hour London Depot

Evening Standard

Join the London Standard’s Transport Editor Ross Lydall as he tours Lime’s 24-hour north London Depot operation. From fixing, cleaning and battery charging, the centre is a hive of activity as each bicycle is made road-safe within one day of arriving to be checked. Lime is London’s E-bike rental market leader, with riders making 11.5 million trips in the first half of 2024, according to the company’s Director of policy, Hal Stevenson. But the bikes are not popular with everyone, some Londoners see them as a menace because of the ways some riders simply abandon the bikes by the roadside or in the centre of a pavement.

Transcript

00:00When it comes to hire bikes in London, there is one undisputed market leader, Lime.

00:06I've come to the Lime depot here in Tottenham to see what goes on behind the scenes.

00:13This depot is one of two that Lime has in London, the other is in Bermondsey and it's an absolute hive of activity.

00:20There are around 70 to 80 staff here and the depot is open on a 24-7 basis.

00:26The aim is to get these bikes into the depot and back out onto the streets fully repaired within 24 hours.

00:33If you look at the first three years of our service here, we did about 12 million trips in total.

00:38In the first half of this year, only during commuting hours, we did 11.5 million trips.

00:43So the growth has been astronomical.

00:45The biggest challenge is overcrowded parking locations.

00:48There are too many people wanting to leave their bikes in the designated places that they're required to do so, particularly in central London.

00:54So we're working with our partner boroughs to build more parking locations,

00:58to make sure that wherever you cycle in London, there's a safe and convenient place for you to leave your bike.

01:03There are around 20,000 Lime bikes in London and they're used for millions of journeys each year.

01:09But they're not popular with everyone.

01:12Some Londoners see them as a menace because of the way some riders just simply abandon them on the side of roads or on pavements.

01:20One borough, Brent, even threatened to ban Lime,

01:24although a deal was eventually struck which allows Lime to remain in operation.

01:29We're really pleased to be able to continue to offer our service to Brent residents.

01:34Tens of thousands of them rely on us on a day-to-day basis to get about the borough.

01:38We're really clear that banning bikes doesn't help anyone.

01:42But what does help people is investing in our on-the-ground team,

01:45investing in more parking infrastructure and investing in new technology to manage parking better.

01:50So we're working with Brent to provide data and funding to set up 200 dedicated parking locations

01:55that will be based all across the borough and people will have to leave their bikes in from mid-next year.

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