Poor service to e-bike users raises big questions about LB Hounslow’s management of e-bike rentals

Lime bikes in a residential street in Chiswick before they were banished from the borough

Dramatic drop in bike journeys in LB Hounslow

The number of journeys by rented e-bikes in the borough of Hounslow has dropped dramatically since the beginning of August when the Council scrapped its arrangement with Lime bikes and gave contracts to rival operators Forest and Voi instead.

One of the Council’s key policies is to encourage ‘active travel’, ie. cycling and walking, but e-bike journey figures since beginning of August show the opposite is happening.

A Freedom of Information request shows that Forest and Voi riders together made over 73,000 e-bike trips in the borough between 11 August and 15 September.

Lime say they did 128,000 trips in July.

Allowing for the fact that was Forest and Voi’s first month in operation, we looked at figures over the first two months, which includes the period in which Tube and bus strikes saw a peak in e-bike journeys in September.

Forest boast their riders in Hounslow did over 150,000 trips in eight weeks since launch with almost 20,000 active users.

By contrast, Lime riders did 255,000 trips in June and July – 75,000 more.

Voi have not published their figures. Their spokesperson told The Chiswick Calendar “we don’t currently keep that data for Hounslow”, but when we asked at last week’s Chiswick Area Forum meeting about the number of bikes they were providing, they admitted that so far, they had provided just over 50% the number they promised.

READ ALSO: Voi providing half the number of e-bikes they have promised in Hounslow

Forest and Voi bikes

New services less convenient for users

Rental e-bike users have criticised the lack of available bikes, especially Voi bikes, and they dislike the inconvenience of having to download two apps instead of one, but the biggest problem is that Hounslow residents can no longer ride a Lime bike home.

If they pick up a Lime bike in central London, or in any of the bordering boroughs of Richmond, Ealing or Hammersmith & Fulham, they have to stop at the border of Hounslow and either look for another bike or walk.

As a result, e-bikes have piled up at the borders, prompting TV presenter Dara Ó Briain to describe Chiswick Bridge as like “Checkpoint Charlie”.

READ ALSO: Lime bikes lose contract to Forest and Voi in LB Hounslow

READ ALSO: Dara Ó Briain likens e-bike borders to ‘Checkpoint Charlie’

After the outcry his comments sparked, Hounslow has changed the arrangement with Lime so riders can cross the borough, but they are not permitted to leave Lime bikes within the borough or pick them up and start their ride here.

Lime bikes abandoned on the Richmond side of Chiswick Bridge

Hounslow told Lime to stop their bikes from working at the border

LB Hounslow’s Cabinet Member for Transport, Cllr Katherine Dunne, told The Chiswick Calendar it had been Lime’s decision to stop the bikes from working at the borders, but The Chiswick Calendar has since seen an email from the Council officer in charge of strategy which told Lime they must disable their bikes at the borders. The email says:

‘Our requirement will be that from 11:59 on 10 August 2025, Lime makes all of LBH a publicly-visible (i.e. on the app) No Go Zone. We note this method has been used in the London Borough of Hillingdon and would ask that this be replicated in LBH. This will mean that the electric assist function will cut out at the borough boundary and users will not be able to legitimately end a trip in LBH on a Lime bike’.

The inconvenience to users was not only foreseen but planned as part of the strategy.

If Lime bikes are found in the borough, they are picked up by Hounslow Highways and the cost of removal and storage is passed on to Lime.

Forest put in a lower quality bid than Lime

When I asked Cllr Katherine Dunne in our interview last week about the inconvenience of the new contracts to users, she told me money was the most important aspect of the tender process – how much the e-bike companies were willing to pay.

READ ALSO: “The situation is not ideal” – Hounslow’s Cabinet Member for Transport talks e-bikes with The Chiswick Calendar

Each of the three companies who tendered submitted a blind bid for a two-year contract to operate in the borough.

The Chiswick Calendar understands from industry sources that market leader Lime bid between £50,000 and £100,000 less than their close rivals Forest, but Lime were marked higher by Council officials on what they were offering in terms of user experience, and protection from harm for residents who are inconvenienced by abandoned bikes.

The bidders were asked about six criteria: parking compliance and geofencing; operations; e-bike specifications; customer charges and affordability; social value; and scheme monitoring and data sharing.

Forest scored 3 across the board, their tender described by officials as ‘Good’ in every category.

Lime received the maximum score of 4 in four of the six categories, the quality of their proposals described by officials as ‘High’. For the remaining two categories, operations and customer charges and affordability, they scored the same as Forest.

Chiswick Area Forum, Monday 13 October

Lime scored better on parking compliance

At the Chiswick Area Forum last week, the Council’s programme strategy manager, Alexandra Crush, told the meeting the criteria for the tender had been informed by feedback from residents ‘including aspiration for better parking compliance, more affordable user pricing and faster response times’ [to pick up bikes which have been left dangerously blocking access].

Yet the Council’s own officers scored Lime more highly for parking compliance and geofencing.

One of the questions at the Chiswick Area Forum was about vulnerability to hacking so bikes can be ridden illegally. It contributes to the number of abandoned bikes because neither the e-bike operator nor the Council has any sanction over a rider who is riding a bike illegally.

Both Forest and Voi said their bikes did not have a problem with hacking.

Lime, who have been vulnerable to hacking, evident from the tell-tale ticking sound of a bike that has not been paid for, has retrofitted their whole fleet over the summer to fix the problem.

Cllr Katherine Dunne, LB Hounslow Cabinet Member for Transport; Jeremy Vine

Pressure on Hounslow to reinstate Lime

Something else the Cabinet Member for Transport told The Chiswick Calendar last week was that it was now not possible to reinstate Lime in the borough because of the contracts they have with Forest and Voi, but The Chiswick Calendar has seen the clause in the contract which specifically does not grant exclusivity to the new operators. It says:

‘The Concession acknowledges that in entering into this Agreement no form of exclusivity is granted by the Council, and the Council is at all times entitled to enter into similar contracts with other operators in relation to the same or similar Services’.

We spoke to Fred Barton, who has started a petition to reinstate Lime in LB Hounslow, who told us:

“Every single person I have spoken to who uses Lime thinks they are better. More and more people are echoing their frustration at the lack of availability of Voi bikes in Hounslow and at how difficult it is to find a Forest bike in central London. Forget Voi bikes, there aren’t any”.

He finds it nonsensical that Hounslow would decide not to give the contract to the biggest provider, adversely affecting the biggest number of e-bike users.

“I’m guessing they don’t want to change it because for them to do that they would have to admit they’d made a mistake”.

Jeremy Vine

We also spoke to broadcaster Jeremy Vine, who has been posting on social media about the inconvenience to users since Lime was barred from the borough. He told us:

“It’s tragic that a council which has done so much for cycling has shot itself in the saddlebag like this.

“What’s especially concerning is the email saying Lime were “required” to disable their bikes on entry into Hounslow. The council told everyone this was an act of self-sabotage by Lime, but it seems that wasn’t true.

“Next time this decision must be made by people who actually use e-bikes for their commute. How could they have given a licence to Voi, which stop as soon as you enter Hammersmith?”

Hounslow Council now has questions to answer about why they gave the contract to an operator who their own officers marked down as providing an inferior service.

Why did they not come clean that it was their decision that Lime bikes should stop working at the border?

What do they plan to do about a situation which is adversely affecting e-bike travel in the borough and having the opposite effect to the Council’s policy of encouraging active travel?

Since the introduction of the Forest and Voi services adversely affected so many e-bike users, and other Hounslow residents, are they now considering reinstating Lime?

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