FOI request detail

Santander Cycles

Request ID: FOI-3177-1920
Date published: 11 February 2020

You asked

1) The number of accidents involving "Boris Bikes"/Santander Cycles since the scheme began Could you break this information down by calendar year and by accident type - fatal, serious, incident. For clarity, this means I am requesting the numbers of each type of accident in each year. 2) The number of pedal cyclist casualties in Greater London since 2010, again broken down by year. 3) The number of journeys/hires made on Boris Bikes per year since the scheme began

We answered

TfL Ref: FOI-3177-1920

Thank you for your email received by Transport for London (TfL) on 20 January 2020.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.  I can confirm we do hold the information you require.

Over 87 million journeys have been made using the cycle hire scheme since it started in July 2010. Safety is TfL’s top priority and each of 12,000 Santander Cycles in London has an annual service to ensure that they are safe and each part is working correctly.

Reducing road danger remains at the heart of many of the improvements we are making to cycling in London and is fundamental to the Mayor’s Transport Strategy and Vision Zero goal of eliminating death and serious injury from London’s roads by 2041.

You asked for:

1) The number of accidents involving "Boris Bikes"/Santander Cycles since the scheme began

Could you break this information down by calendar year and by accident type - fatal, serious, incident. For clarity, this means I am requesting the numbers of each type of accident in each year.

Please find information on the number of reported Cycle Hire casualties in the table below:

Date period

30th July 2010 – end 2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016*

2017

2018

2019**

Fatal

0

0

0

1

0

1

0

0

0

0

Serious

2

7

10

5

7

2

4

7

16

14

Slight

15

30

42

28

66

33

22

83

72

63

Total

17

37

52

34

73

36

26

90

88

77

Please note that the table above does not include any other casualties injured in collisions involving a Cycle Hire bike.

*2016 is currently missing any Cycle Hire casualties from November and December due to a change in the reporting system of the Metropolitan Police Service 

**2019 data is provisional and may be subject to change at a later date

Absolute changes in the number of reported serious, slight and all injuries from 2017 onwards partly reflect improvements in the reporting of injury severity by the police and the introduction of online self reporting. As a result figures for 2017 onwards should not be directly compared with previous data collected by the police using severity based reporting systems.

Personal injury road traffic collisions occurring on the public highway are reported in accordance with the Department for Transport (DfT) STATS 19 national reporting system. Further information on casualty severity definitions is available on the DfT’s website:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/743853/reported-road-casualties-gb-notes-definitions.pdf

2) The number of pedal cyclist casualties in Greater London since 2010, again broken down by year.

Pedal cycle casualties are published on the TfL website at https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/road-safety

3) The number of journeys/hires made on Boris Bikes per year since the scheme began

The number of cycle hire journeys are published on the TfL website at https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/cycle-hire-performance

In accordance with section 21 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to supply you with a copy of the requested information as it is already accessible to you elsewhere.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for some reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

Yours sincerely

Eva Hextall

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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