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- Britain’s quasi-legal ‘rideable’ transport mode – CityMetric
- Samsung Pay pay-as-you-go in London – Metro Report
- London’s ticketing technology going global – Public Transport Int’l
- Sydney’s hidden light rail line – Transporting Cities
- 3D axiometric drawings of New York subway stations – CityLab
- Cambridge US’ sniffing garbage trucks – CityLab
- Wasted US streetcar bridge deck – Atlas Obscura
The “illegal” status of electric rideables ( IF CORRECT ) appears to be a disgrace.
How did this happen?
Was it the “mad moral panic” induced by the invention of the Segway that produced this nonsensical impasse?
More information needed, please?
That CityMetric article…. It claims electrically assisted bikes are illegal. Are they? The link in the CityMetric article takes you to an article about segways – which are a totally different thing.
The article also cites only a small rise in cycle usage. That is true across London as a whole but (1) it uses statistics ending in 2011 – but the new superhighways were not operational then and (2) in the corridors where the fully segregated cyclesuperhighways have been introduced, the percentage increase of cycle users is huge.
The CityMetric article is illustrated with a picture of electric bikes but the text is about hoverboards, Segways, electric miniscooters and the like. It’s innumerate and pejorative throughout.
TfL put the cycle journey stage in 2001 and 2011 as 0.30 and 0.50 million respectively. 1.35% presumably relates to confusion over modal share. The £1 billion investment figure seems unlikely.
I believe the reason these sub-15mph, pneumatic-tyred vehicles are illegal in the UK is that they cannot be pedal powered. Strange reason. A better approach would be controlled stopping distance at speed (you’ll probably want a wheel way out front – sorry penny farthings and unicycles).
‘Sydney’s Hidden Light Rail’ is your link but the article is actually entitled ‘Abandoned by Sydney Light Rail’
But it’s basically a rant about tickets with zero info about the line itself.
An appeal to the LR editors to do a bit more quality checking of the articles they link to. Some of them are very poor indeed and you devalue the LR brand by publishing such rubbish.
Electric rideable may not actually be illegal but they do need crash helmets, insurance and driving licenses. Between them this is quite enough for those who have all three to use more conventional and powerful bikes and for those who don’t to stick to conventional pedal cycles.
@ChrisC, Tom Hawtin
Whilst LR is obviously not responsible for the content of sites to which we link, we endeavour to select blogs and sites that do add in to the knowledge and understanding of other transport lines, systems, and means of operation. The Friday Reads list also serves to highlight interesting and related blogs, not just the featured article.
We have long been fans of CityMetric, and had just discovered Transporting Cities. The latter investigates the public transport experience as a critical component of providing a public service. Or as this case of the Sydney LRT demonstrates, almost actively dissuades usage by new riders.
Is it the case that “pedal assisted” e-bikes are treated the same as “human powered” bikes from a legal point of view?
i can’t see the issue for other types of electric rideables other than the need for speed limiters which would of course need legislation to define and enforce (speed limiters rather than power limits as you need the power to get a fat bloke and his shopping up a steep hill…)
The government has been talking a lot about electric cars recently but they seem to have the usual tunnel vision when it comes to motor transport and are only thinking about things like cars and vans rather than other forms of electrically powered transport.
if you said ‘power-assisted pedal cycles’ instead of ‘pedal assisted e-bikes’ I think you would get closer to how the legislation works. Pedal cycles, like motorbikes and cars, count as ‘vehicles’, but powered bikes, if they don’t need human energy, count as ‘motor vehicles’ and must fulfil all the safety and registration regulations that follow. I suspect another obstacle might be to find a manufacturer willing to pay for the type approval process. You have to be sure of a pretty large revenue stream to want to fork out for that.
I think that is right. But in order to count as not being motor vehicles, it is not only necessary for them to have pedals. That might lead to the sort of rudimentary, almost entirely legal-fictional, pedals which were (some time ago) necessary for something to count as a moped.
The electric assistance has to be arranged to be only supplied when the user is applying some non-zero amount of effort to the pedals. My wife has used such a bike, and (apart from the cost) was delighted by it. This requirement also acts as a sort of soft speed limit – above a certain speed it is difficult to get the pedals to “keep up”.
Quinlet. HM Govt disagrees with you. No such requirements for helmets or insurance.
https://www.gov.uk/electric-bike-rules
@Islanddweller – the article you linked confirms what Quinlet said. “Any electric bike that doesn’t meet the Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycle rules needs to be registered and taxed. You’ll need a driving licence to ride one and you must wear a crash helmet.”
So if the bike doesn’t have pedals or can travel at more than 15.5mph with the motor or the motor is more than 250W, you need a licence and must wear a helmet.
And an interesting sideline to that is that, in law, vehicles that are powered by humans other than by pedals are not considered to be cycles, and thus can be used on footways. These “pedestrian-powered vehicles” cover everything from perambulators to skateboards – but not Segways as the riders do not put their feet on the ground.
Thus Segways cannot be ridden in the footway. But they are able to be licenced for use on the carriageway, as they lack dual brakes and various other things required to make pedal cycles and powered vehicles street legal.
There is a legal distinction between a “footway” (an area reserved for pedestrians alongside a carriageway – what Americans call a sidewalk) and a footpath (defined as a thoroughfare reserved for pedestrians, other than a footway). Section 329(1) Highways Act 1980 – i.e, it can’t be both, and if it isn’t alongside a carriageway it fails to meet the definition of a footway.
It is an offence under Section 72 of the Highways Act 1835 to drive a carriage on a footway, (subsequent legislation having defined a bicycle as a carriage within the meaning of the Act) but it is not an offence under that Act to cycle on a footpath – although it may be against local bylaws or a specific prohibition order, or be a trespass if the path is over private land – and you cannot legally be issued with an FPN for doing so.
http://www.bikehub.co.uk/featured-articles/cycling-and-the-law/
Timbeau
Don’t you mean that Segways Can NOT be licensed for use on the carriageway, because (etc) ?
Re the Sydney light rail – we travelled on it whilst staying in Sydney last year and had no problems. But then we did have money on our Opal cards. Try getting on a London bus with no credit on your Oyster. As for the ‘rideables’ the picture appears to be antique French cyclemotors, the only electric bit there is the spark for the dodgy two stroke Solex engine.
Think I agree with Chrisc about the quality of these articles.
@greg
Yes, I do – oh for an edit function.
@ Alexandali – your comment about Oyster is valid but you can initiate auto top up by nominating a credit or debit card to top up your account when it drops to designated threshold. That way if you have no problems. Alternatively with the advent of wav (contactless) technology on credit and debit cards you can just as easily substitute one of them in place of the Oyster if you have run out of credit. Given cash is no longer acceptable TfL’s approach is fairly flexible and by and large I have heard few complaints or observed many problems. Add to this that TfL accepts Apple Pay and its Android equivalent it’s a pretty robust system
@ Richard B – that’s all fine and correct but the previous poster seems to want to travel for nothing. As we don’t offer a free fare system in London why should anyone be allowed on for nothing just because they have zero credit (except in cases where the person is under obvious distress / is vulnerable and drivers can exercise discretion then). I doubt very much that Sydney’s Opal Card allows you to wander round on the buses for nothing. The nearest analogy we have in London is being allowed to go into a negative balance for one ride or having hit the daily cap level and the card balance being precisely negative. Those are defined exceptions.
I’ve had a quick look at the Opal system website. There are a fair number of similarities to London but fares on all modes are banded / charged by distance and you are required to touch in and out on each mode (except the Manly Ferry). There are daily and weekly caps and somewhat peculiar “travel benefits” when you exceed a fixed number of trips. I thought London’s fare system was complex but I think I’ve found somewhere that might beat it! I can’t see anything other than capping which allows free travel. One small upside from checking this info is finding quite possibly the silliest videos ever to explain how to use a smart ticketing system. 🙂
Tap on, tap off – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKSdrRNEHhw
Top up your card – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0jEbxMMxeY
I do think TfL should copy the first video as people still touch in and out incorrectly in London.
iirc part of the power-assisted-cyle-of-some-form is that they require licencing and identification (number plates) yet you can’t actually do so. Catch-22 and all that.
@WW,
Which poster wanted to travel for nothing?
The point of the original article was that the author had no money on his Opal, and was unable to top up at the station or on the tram, and paper tickets were not available on the tram (they used to be before Opal).
@Alexandali
As WW and RichardB say, London’s system is better since 1) your Oyster can go to negative £1.45 on a bus (maybe even -£1.49, but I don’t have an Oyster with a balance ending in 1p to test – I believe in the past Thames Clippers had fares which ended in odd pennies), and 2) even if you don’t have a contactless card that works in the UK yourself, there is usually a bus passenger travelling further than you who has several contactless cards and will accept your cash or just pay for you…
@RichardB,
Not sure how auto top up is relevant to a tourist. Auto top up is a euphemism for TfL having an interest-free loan of £20 from everyone who has activated this.
In Sydney the amount is $40 and unlike in London (where Oysters with £10 or less can easily be fully refunded in cash at most tube stations), Opals can only be refunded into an Australian bank account via post.
back to @WW,
The Opal system is much less complicated than Oyster, which according to MikeWh’s analysis has 8 different fare scales × 2 (peaks) × 8 fare levels into zone 1 + several non-Zone 1 fares, OSIs and continuation exits, maximum journey times which differ for up to 25+ zones and by day of the week, railcards, I think 6 or more types of discounted Oysters…
Now there are some changes to Opal coming up, but the system when I last used it a few months ago was:
– 5 distance-based fare bands for train and 5 for buses, 2 for ferry and I think 2 for tram
– morning peak based on time of touch in
– daily cap of $15 and Sunday cap of $2.50
– senior opals have a daily cap of $2.50 (replacing paper day travelcards of $2.50) and student / child opals have half fares or something
– a “trip” is one touch-in and -out
– if there is less than 60 minutes between trips, they combine into a “journey”, i.e. all touch-outs are like London’s continuation exits / 60-minute OSIs if you re-enter the same station (except for buses where you can continue on any bus)
– if journeys have consecutive trips using the same mode, they are charged together (system limit of 4); if not on the same mode, they still combine but are charged separately (bad for passengers, may be changed)
– so if you took 4 buses in a day, starting and ending at home, with less than 60 minutes between buses, that is 4 trips combined into 1 journey with a distance travelled of zero km, resulting in the final bus “refunding” you until you have paid the lowest fare. I think this is now fixed to disallow “refunds”. Before it was fixed, I took trains from Sydney to the end of every line and back, for something like $3 return.
– point of combining into journeys is that after 8 journeys (resets Mondays), travel until Sun is free (but now half-price I think) – so people would accumulate 8 cheap journeys on Monday by taking tram one stop then jogging back and repeat (to avoid combining the trips), taking a bus 1 stop to lunch, etc. and get their expensive commute free for the rest of the week
– this system was to soften the blow from getting rid of seasons completely – no more annual or monthly passes