Author: Rikesh Shah, Chair of the Shared Micromobility Alliance
Earlier this month, Forest wrote to the Mayor arguing that London’s e-bike and e-scooter market has become an unworkable patchwork.
It echoes a similar public intervention from Voi earlier this year, when the operator called on the Mayor to set out a timeline for London-wide regulation.
Whatever you make of the specifics of either, taken together they’re a useful signal: there’s real appetite across the sector and increasingly from boroughs themselves to get this right.
And there’s every reason to. London is already one of the world’s great cycling cities – 1.5 million cycling trips happen here every single day given the great work and investment from the Mayor and TfL on infrastructure, wayfinding, safety and more. That’s not a starting point, that’s a revolution already under way.
The question in front of the Mayor isn’t whether to build on that momentum. It’s how to give it the coherent, city-wide framework it deserves so it can go further, faster.
London’s 33-borough problem
Right now, that momentum is being run through 33 separate borough policies rather than one London-wide network.
Boroughs are still striking their own deals on their own terms, tenders are being paused and re-run mid-process, incumbents are being handed short extensions on old terms and neighbouring boroughs are pulling in different directions on parking, fleet caps and enforcement.
None of this is anyone acting in bad faith – it’s what happens when everyone knows a single, TfL-run licensing framework is coming but nobody yet knows the details. It’s an entirely understandable holding pattern. But it’s also leaving real upside on the table.
Because a network only works as a network and Londoners are the ones who’d feel the difference if it did. A bike that works the same way on both sides of a borough line. Parking that’s predictable street to street rather than a lottery. Data that lets TfL and boroughs work together instead of each other.
None of that requires final legislation to start happening – it requires a clear, shared direction of travel which the Mayor and TfL are genuinely well placed to give.
Build the city-wide network now
That’s the opportunity here and it’s a good one.
A handful of principles, signalled now, would let everyone start building toward the same city-wide network well ahead of the small print: a clear steer on how many operators London expects to license so the market can plan around one framework instead of 33. A baseline expectation of live data sharing so TfL and boroughs can work from the same picture. A genuine commitment to joint working between operators and boroughs and between boroughs themselves. And a serious plan for consistent, adequate parking provision, still the single biggest daily source of friction for the people actually using these schemes.
None of these need to wait for final legislation. What they’d do, immediately, is give operators and boroughs something real to build toward together. Operators who want to be among the licensed few under a future pan-London scheme will start competing on data sharing, parking compliance and collaboration right now. Boroughs, given a clear direction of travel, get the confidence to plan for the network London is heading toward rather than the deal in front of them this year.
London’s cycling revolution is already real, already loved by the people using it and already growing. Getting the framework right isn’t about starting something new. It’s about giving 1.5 million daily trips and the millions more they could become a single, joined-up city to move through.
That’s a genuinely exciting thing for the Mayor to lead on given it directly supports the Mayor’s Transport Strategy goals. And London’s citizens are ready for it.
