bike transport-london to scotland
Discussion
biggles330d said:
Caledonian Sleeper used to offer free transport of bikes. It was originally a condition of their franchise agreement.
It soon became very obvious that there was little space on the train and if you had to offer uncapped capacity to anyone who wanted it the service could in theory be required to carry hundreds of bikes every night (for free). More space taken up by bikes, the less space available to actual paying passengers.
There was a road service originally put in place where you dropped your bike at Euston and met it at the other end in the morning (at no cost to the customer if the train capacity was full) but as you'd expect, it cost an absolute fortune to provide an overnight London to Scotland shuttle, and vice versa, as it had to serve 5 destinations (Aberdeen, Inverness, Fort William, Edinburgh and Glasgow) and arrive no later than an hour or two after the train did. The bike transport was probably costing more to provide than the passenger was paying to go on the train.
It was a case of Transport Scotland specifying something in the franchise with all good intention (to encourage cycling and cycle tourism) without really thinking through the implications of delivering it if it became wildly popular - which it did once people got to know about it.
The requirement was negotiated out of the franchise agreement and now the operator is only obliged to offer free transit up to the capacity on the train - probably no more than 9 or 10 bikes per service, so first come, first serve.
https://www.sleeper.scot/travelling-with-bikes/
Imagine if they were all motorbikes... It soon became very obvious that there was little space on the train and if you had to offer uncapped capacity to anyone who wanted it the service could in theory be required to carry hundreds of bikes every night (for free). More space taken up by bikes, the less space available to actual paying passengers.
There was a road service originally put in place where you dropped your bike at Euston and met it at the other end in the morning (at no cost to the customer if the train capacity was full) but as you'd expect, it cost an absolute fortune to provide an overnight London to Scotland shuttle, and vice versa, as it had to serve 5 destinations (Aberdeen, Inverness, Fort William, Edinburgh and Glasgow) and arrive no later than an hour or two after the train did. The bike transport was probably costing more to provide than the passenger was paying to go on the train.
It was a case of Transport Scotland specifying something in the franchise with all good intention (to encourage cycling and cycle tourism) without really thinking through the implications of delivering it if it became wildly popular - which it did once people got to know about it.
The requirement was negotiated out of the franchise agreement and now the operator is only obliged to offer free transit up to the capacity on the train - probably no more than 9 or 10 bikes per service, so first come, first serve.
https://www.sleeper.scot/travelling-with-bikes/
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