The capital’s bike hire scheme is currently the most successful in Europe, in terms of the trips per vehicle per day.
The rental e-bikes were introducedin the city in September last year, with just 50 bikes spread throughout 39 parking locations.
Eight months on, and there are now over 800 bikes in 200 locations in Edinburgh, with plans in place to expand the scheme further.
Cllr Stephen Jenkinson, the Transport Convener, said that since Voi’s introduction in Edinburgh almost 550,000 trips have been taken by around 53,500 users.
He outlined that users have cycled approximately 1.3 million kilometres since September, which equates to 34 laps of the Earth – and an average of around 5,000 trips per day.
It is planned to extend the scheme further, with Cllr Jenkinson noting that the council is planning to bring the bikes to Portobello, Cramond, Gorgie and Dalry before the city’s festival season begins.
Mr Jenkinson, who dubbed the pilot period of the scheme an “overwhelming success”, also revealed that the number of trips per vehicle per day is 8.4, far exceeding the “average that companies look for” which is reportedly around 2.5 trips per vehicle per day.
The Voi bikes have been much more successful than their predecessor, the Just Eat Cycles run by Serco which ended in 2021.
In the past eight months, there have been 2.6 times as many rides taken on the Voi bikes than there were over the course of one full year of the previous scheme.
