Serco, the firm that runs the Boris Bike scheme, has been criticised over
its ‘unfortunate’ performance after 15,000 charging errors.
Transport for London is withholding about £5 million of payments and the firm
has been given a ‘critical improvement plan’.
14,937 customers have received refunds for access or usage charges since
the cycle hire scheme was launched in July 2010. In May alone, almost 600
people had money withdrawn from their accounts for hires they had not made.
Most customers were overcharged by less than £10, but 24 had over £50
taken and one cyclist lost £300. Serco has refunded overcharged customers
and paid over £6,000 in compensation as a ‘goodwill gesture’.
A TfL spokesman said: ‘We have issued Serco with a critical improvement
plan as the service they have provided for our Barclays Cycle Hire users has
not reached the consistently high standard we expect.
‘The plan details what we need to see delivered for Londoners and we expect
to see immediate improvements.’
Green Party mayoral candidate Jenny Jones, the Green Party mayoral
candidate for London, commented today:
‘Like most Londoners I’ve been very excited by the bike hire scheme and I
believed that the glitches would get sorted fairly quickly. Sadly, the Mayor
has failed on the detailed working of a scheme which has been riddled with
technical problems.
‘Overcharging is one of the more visible problems, but the biggest complaint
seems to be the failure of bikes to release and people having to walk ages to
find one that works.
‘The Mayor has clearly stated that he needs to resolve these problems before
he expands the scheme to east London and I hope he manages to get a grip
on things in time for the 2012 Games.’
Mr Johnson said in response: ‘It is unfortunate that such errors have
occurred.’ Yet he added: ‘It is important to note that over five million journeys
have been taken on scheme cycles, meaning refunds have been issued for
some 0.3 per cent of all journeys.’
