A free bike hire initiative in London saw more than 5,500 people participate this summer, as part of a campaign to encourage cycling in the city.

During June, Transport for London’s (TfL) "Cycle Sundays" promotion allowed riders to make an unlimited number of free 30-minute journeys using the Santander Cycles network on each of the five Sundays in the month. A total of 13,166 bike hires were made by 5,586 people during the offer, according to data from Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office. E-bikes were also available at a reduced rate of £1 per ride.

TfL announced plans to build on the success of this promotion by exploring additional ways to attract more customers to the bike hire scheme later this year.

In line with these efforts, TfL is expanding its fleet of e-bikes within the current scheme, aiming to triple their availability by the end of the summer. Currently, 1,500 e-bikes are available for hire, with the number expected to increase to 2,000 by the summer's end.

Despite a dip in bike hires between January and July 2023—reaching their lowest level in a decade and down by about a third compared to the same period in 2022—recent statistics indicate that hiring levels have stabilized. Between January and June this year, 4,151,794 hires were recorded, a slight decrease of 0.4% from the 4,168,125 hires during the same period in 2023. Photo by Stephen Craven, Wikimedia commons.