Transport for London (TfL) has introduced that each one non-folding e-bikes can be banned from the vast majority of London’s public transport community. The ban has been pushed by the fireplace danger from common bikes transformed into e-bikes utilizing DIY kits, however extends to purpose-built e-bikes too within the title of simpler enforcement.
The brand new ban comes into impact on March thirty first, and applies to the London Underground, Overground, Elizabeth Line, and DLR. The one e-bikes that can be permitted on these providers are folding e-bikes, which TfL says are much less more likely to have been transformed into e-bikes utilizing mod kits. That exemption can be a boon for Brompton and Gocycle, two London-based corporations that concentrate on foldable fashions.
TfL says that “cycles which have been tailored utilizing digital conversion kits pose a better hearth danger than purpose-built e-bikes,” however that “it may be arduous to distinguish” modified bikes from different fashions. The group provides that the ban is important “till improved product security measures are in place” for conversion kits, batteries, and chargers.
The ban follows a number of fires on public transport linked to e-bikes, together with one which burst into flames on the platform at west London’s Rayners Lane station. Following that incident, the practice drivers’ union ASLEF threatened a strike if security measures weren’t applied, which was backed by the separate RMT and TSSA transport unions. E-scooters have been banned throughout the community since 2021.
“Whereas we recognise the sustainable advantages e-bikes, and micromobility typically, carry to our metropolis, the fact is that throughout London we have been seeing an e-bike or e-scooter hearth each different day, on common, and we’ve got explicit concern in regards to the danger posed by conversion kits or modified e-bikes,” London Hearth Brigade deputy commissioner Charlie Pugsley says. “When these fires happen, they are often sudden, extremely ferocious and produce smoke that’s extraordinarily poisonous.”
Full-size bikes — digital or in any other case — are already not permitted on London’s bus and tram providers, and are solely allowed on certain parts of the Underground network at certain times, with a blanket ban throughout rush hour. As soon as the electrical bike ban comes into impact, non-folding e-bikes will solely be permitted on the Woolwich Ferry, sure river and coach providers, and the devoted Silvertown Tunnel Cycle Shuttle, which opens on April seventh.