Eco Cycle: this system uses a robot valet to park your bike underground

Company aims to tackle theft fears with automated racks at stations 
Ross Lydall @RossLydall24 November 2015

A cycle vault that uses robots to store bikes safely underground and return them to the surface in seconds could be built in London.

The Eco Cycle system has been used in Japan for more than a decade. Now its backers believe it could offer a solution to the capital’s dire shortage of secure bike parking.

Bikes are loaded on to an automated rack at pavement level before a robotic lift slides them into a buried cylindrical vault. Bikes, identified by a barcode on the frame, are retrieved when owners swipe a smartcard with the same barcode on a pavement machine.

The system, which can also store bikes in a cylindrical tower above ground, was being demonstrated tonight beside Southwark station as Eco Cycle sought to attract interest from employers and local authorities.

The vaults can store 204 bikes

Managing director Nick Knight said the fear of having a bike stolen was second only to concerns over safety in discouraging Londoners to cycle.

More than 17,800 bikes were reported stolen in London last year but campaigners believe the true figure could be 80,000. The popularity of cycle-to-work schemes, which offer tax breaks to commuter cyclists, had resulted in many high-value bikes, he added.

Mr Knight said: “We feel there are huge benefits because fully secure cycle parking is not being provided by local authorities or Transport for London. It’s the missing link to encouraging more cycling.

“We think you can get more people to cycle if you don’t need to have a lock on your bike and you know it’s going to be there when you return.”

Eco Cycle could become a less street-cluttering alternative to Boris bike racks and hopes to set up a subscription system open to individual cyclists rather than just employees accessing a vault via a company scheme.

The unit is sunk to a depth of almost 12 metres and stores 204 bikes. “If you are digging down, as long as you have not got a Tube tunnel in the way or a gas or water main, you can deal with most other things,” Mr Knight said.

London's bikesmiths - in pictures

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He said the scheme had been suggested by landowner Grosvenor when it looked into possible changes to Berkeley Square, but permission was refused to fit a vault inside a Crossrail ventilation shaft in Finsbury Circus.

Secure cycle parking is often made a condition of planning consent but is restricted to employees with access to the building. Mr Knight wants to see them incorporated as part of new Crossrail stations such as Ealing Broadway.

Bike sheds, costing £10 a year for a key fob, were recently installed at Walthamstow Central and Leytonstone stations as part of the Waltham Forest mini-Holland scheme. The Midtown Cycle Vault in Bloomsbury Square has space for 100 bikes, alongside changing rooms, and costs £200 a year.

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