My dreamy Voi Girl Summer has faded into a dark No Bike November. It had been building for months, but now, riding the bus to the office on a dry autumn day, I feel its absence as keenly as the loss of sunlight after 5pm.

The new pricing isn’t really the problem. There just never seems to be a bike available when I need it. Each morning the early risers scoop up the hot pink e-chariots and zip into their offices in the city centre. By 8am, Glasgow’s residential areas are Voi deserts. Meanwhile, throughout the workday in the city centre, there are hundreds of e-bikes ( I'm looking at the map on the Voi app on a weekday afternoon, there are roughly 300 bikes there).  

In the evening, the tide flows in reverse. Good luck getting a hire bike home after 6pm. And if you are lucky enough to snag one, you’ll be crossing your fingers and toes that your nearest stop has a space available.

I imagine that Voi has robust data on the trips taken with its vehicles. It’s why I find it infuriating that the company does not seem to actively redistribute the e-bikes around Glasgow to respond to consumer demand. Because of the problems with availability, I can no longer treat the Voi scheme as transport at all. There is not much value in an affordable bike if it doesn’t exist when you need it.

Back in June when I bought my first Voi pass (1,400 minutes for just £17.99) I was hooked. I could get to and from the city centre faster than an Uber. I could be at the pub in less than ten minutes. Heck, I even rode them around in the sunshine just for fun. I yapped about how great they were to anyone who would listen. I nodded at fellow Voi riders on the cycle lanes. There were nearly 825,000 hires that month. I wasn’t alone.

The strange fate of a country that prefers paperwork to progress

The strange fate of a country that prefers paperwork to progress

What........

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