A scheme where people can hire electric bicycles on the street in Bristol has been put on hold because of 'extensive and relentless levels of vandalism', the organisers have announced.
The Big Issue Bikes scheme saw a fleet of 400 e-bikes on the streets of Bristol, with people able to hire, unlock and ride them using an app on their phones. But within six months, those 400 bikes were reduced to just 200 useable bikes in service because they keep getting vandalised.
The sheer scale of the damage has shocked organisers - they have seen more ebikes damaged in Bristol than in all the other places around the world the scheme is operating combined - and the equivalent of the entire fleet of bikes gets destroyed in Bristol every two weeks.
