Muted reaction to cycle to work scheme?

niceonetom

Stark wrote: »

It's a cyclic process. More people cycling means the roads become safer and more cyclist friendly due to safety in numbers, which in turn gets even more people cycling. We just need to tip the balance so that this process starts moving again. ...

Agreed. There is a critical mass (no, i don't mean the CM agitators) effect that could shift public perception of cycling from being something for the unwashed, unwaged and unwanted to something for the mainstream - a viable and useful alternative to the car. We are nowhere near the tipping point though. The benefit in kind scheme, while a bit meek, is a carrot.

A bus strike might be a stick. It's remarkable the gap between public perception of cycling and the experience of those who actually cycle - a week of cycling because there is no real alternative all of a sudden might have a few people saying "what the hell was i doing on that bus anyway?".

The idea of judging this scheme to be a failure after a few winter months during the most sudden economic down turn my lifetime is a bit laughable. It is a pity that there is no onus on employers to provide the scheme though, it is easy for them to say that they have bigger fish to fry right now and you and your bike can go and shíte.

rubadub

niceonetom wrote: »

A bus strike might be a stick. It's remarkable the gap between public perception of cycling and the experience of those who actually cycle - a week of cycling because there is no real alternative all of a sudden might have a few people saying "what the hell was i doing on that bus anyway?".

Thats a good point. I actually saw 3-4 newbie commuters out today on my usual journey at the usual time, I have not seen new people for ages. I feel that way "what the hell...."

If I was offered to be chaffeur driven to work, or get a free ferrari to drive in I would say no thanks, would take twice as long and I would be stressed to feck, and fat!

seamus

rubadub wrote: »

If I was offered to be chaffeur driven to work, or get a free ferrari to drive in I would say no thanks, would take twice as long and I would be stressed to feck, and fat!

Is it wrong that my first thought was, "Sell the Ferrari"?

zAbbo

Is it well advertised, or fully understood

Is there a website calculator similar to the UK's -http://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/

Húrin

WicklowRacer wrote: »

It doesnt matter how much incentive is put before the masses, cycling for commuters will never go mainstream.

That's nonsense. Before cars were so affordable and public transport was at its present extent, cycling was very much mainstream. Indeed, some countries have even made cycling mainstream without being too poor to afford cars or good public transport.

Stark wrote: »

It's a cyclic process. More people cycling means the roads become safer and more cyclist friendly due to safety in numbers, which in turn gets even more people cycling. We just need to tip the balance so that this process starts moving again. At the moment, we're losing cyclist numbers, which has led to cycling becoming such a minority pursuit that everyone else thinks you must be crazy to take a bike out in the city.

I've noticed an increase in cycling in Dublin in the last two years. Just observation though, no statistics.

short circuit

Isn't winter usually the slowest time for bike sales and we will see a lot more people buying new bikes for whatever purpose come early spring ... not talking about the hardcore people on this forum .. know of more than one who went out and bought a new bike even though the scheme might be just around the corner.

Also, with all the other tax changes going in at the sametime .. I don't think implementing this scheme would be the highest priority for any HR department. In my case ... got the usual "we are investigating" from HR for nearly 8 weeks ... but looks like we might get something implemented before April .. only thing is I got a bike in December ... :rolleyes:

Caroline_ie

Húrin wrote: »

That's nonsense. Before cars were so affordable and public transport was at its present extent, cycling was very much mainstream. Indeed, some countries have even made cycling mainstream without being too poor to afford cars or good public transport.

As you say it yourself *before* ... as in last century and in countries like China, which I can invite you to move to, if you think they have a better life than us.

Húrin wrote: »

I've noticed an increase in cycling in Dublin in the last two years. Just observation though, no statistics.

Which is probably equal to the increase in foreign nationals and student moving to the city.

blorg

Caroline_ie wrote: »

As you say it yourself *before* ... as in last century and in countries like China, which I can invite you to move to, if you think they have a better life than us.

I think he means the likes of the Netherlands or Denmark, they don't cycle there due to lack of money to afford a car.

rubadub wrote: »

If I was offered to be chaffeur driven to work, or get a free ferrari to drive in I would say no thanks, would take twice as long and I would be stressed to feck, and fat!

I'd take this one, actually a proper bike unlike many of the car-maker tie ins (what is it about car manufacturers bringing out bikes anyway?)

markpb

My problems with the scheme are:

1. It's dependant on your employer having the time (a lot don't)

2. It's dependant on your employer funding the cash (mine won't, same for annual taxsaver tickets)

3. You can only buy one bike every five years, I'v been cycle-commuting for that long and have at least one bike stolen each year. I'm not going to spend more than 150 on a replacement bike.

4. It's needlessly complicated, why involve employers at all, why not just submit the receipt like a med1?

If it was part of a multi-pronged approach to improve cycle facilities and safety, it would be a good idea. On it's own, it's not going to encourage more than a handful of people who _didn't already cycle_ to change to cycling. The rest of us will just use it to get a discount on a new bike.

blorg

rubadub wrote: »

I would have liked to see it somehow out of the hands of HR depts. If they were anyway serious about encouraging people using bikes they would just scrap tax on them altogether, it is a FAR simpler concept, it would also have people buying bikes in Irish shops more. ... I have said in other threads if they were anyway serious about tackling obesity & bad health they would scrap tax on all fitness related equipment.

Not allowed to, we don't have control over VAT rates, there is a minimum allowed of 15%. They could scrap it for safety equipment like helmets however (as is the case in the UK.)

I think others are scared about being "caught", i.e. if it is pissing rain are they "allowed" drive to work?

Yes, it is clearly spelt out there is no minimum usage requirement.

what if your bike is stolen in the first month (likely given the extremely lax garda views on bike theft & recovery). Are you then obliged to buy another bike to use for the year? If not people could buy it and sell it to their mate and claim it was nicked.

The "only once every five years" takes care of this. Once you have bought (paid for?) the bike it is yours to do what you will with but you can't get another for 5 years.

FrankGrimes

I work for one of the companies in that 100 Best Companies to Work For List and they are generally very good about getting this sort of thing up and running (they do the the transport tickets etc.) but I haven't heard a word about this scheme being introduced.

I reckon they will introduce it soon enough but I could understand if they try to simplify the admin of it by just doing a deal with one cycle store and making say 5 models available to purchase under the scheme. Likewise, they may just make a standard list of safety equipment available for selection. When you start to scale something like this having a standard and brief set of SKUs included makes it a lot simpler.

That's the way I'd expect it to pan out which is why I went ahead and ordered my bike from the UK at the end of December - I felt I'd be waiting months for the scheme and the deal available from the UK at that time (best exchange rate ever from consumer perspective, sell-off of 2008 end of line models) would offset the possible savings under the scheme, and I'm very happy with that decision to-date. That said, I would like to see broader adoption of this scheme....even if it meant that 5% of those people that already cycle to work were to get better lights and more visible gear, it would be worth it.

My employer does provider showers and lockers so I can store shirts when I drive in and have them there when I cycle and I think many people feel the same. I wouldn't cycle even 5km to work if I wasn't having a shower when I got there. In different times a tax break for expenses incurred for providing such facilities to employees would seem to be a very good idea.

stuf

FrankGrimes wrote: »

I reckon they will introduce it soon enough but I could understand if they try to simplify the admin of it by just doing a deal with one cycle store and making say 5 models available to purchase under the scheme. Likewise, they may just make a standard list of safety equipment available for selection. When you start to scale something like this having a standard and brief set of SKUs included makes it a lot simpler.

The admin for the company is just based on the invoice from the bike shop - a single shop or limited bikes wouldn't make this any easier.

My work had the scheme implemented within two days of the first person asking about it. No drama at all and word of mouth has meant that about 10 out of 80 employees have taken it up so far. Any company that already implements the travel ticket scheme should be able to implement this easily.

I find it a bit weird that you imagined all the problems that might happen and then chose not to ask on that basis. You might have saved as much with the UK purchase but not bothering to ask based on supposition is a bit sad really

Bunnyhopper

"Workers shun Greens’ bike bid"

It sounds a bit more as if the problem really starts with employers shunning it.

Also, it's interesting that it's the "Greens' bike bid". We'll know it's a success when it turns into "Fianna Fail's bike bid" :rolleyes:

Tawny

My work isn't remotely interested in implimenting it. I think it just sounds like too much hassle for them.

Last week, I had an out of work dinner with my boss and just happened to mention I was thinking of getting a new bike. First of all, she was very enthusiastic and said I should take advantage of the new scheme where you get the tax off. I explained briefly how it works, they have to buy the bike for me, then I pay the money back, and the response was pretty much 'ohh I see, thats a Shame'.

Sniipe

Whats the deal? I don't understand it.
From an employee point of view for me what would happen?

1) Do I have to convince my employer to get involved in the scheme (which will probably be easy as he cycles to work himself)

2) I currently drive, and it would actually take me 20min to cycle. Currently amn't too keen on it owing to the fact that I live in one of the wettest place in Ireland.. Galway.

3) Can I buy the bike? Its 1000euro limit as far as I know. Who pays for it? Do I pay something towards it? My employer or me? If so how much would they get back?

4) If my bike is stolen, I've to shell out?

5) Whats to stop me cycling it once and then giving up?

6) What if I drive to work once/twice/a few times/half the year, etc?

Clueless?!?

Sniipe

Sniipe wrote: »

Whats the deal? I don't understand it.
From an employee point of view for me what would happen?

1) Do I have to convince my employer to get involved in the scheme (which will probably be easy as he cycles to work himself)

Yep.

2) I currently drive, and it would actually take me 20min to cycle. Currently amn't too keen on it owing to the fact that I live in one of the wettest place in Ireland.. Galway.

Sure you're used to the rain so

3) Can I buy the bike? Its 1000euro limit as far as I know. Who pays for it? Do I pay something towards it? My employer or me? If so how much would they get back?

There were some good posts which might have been put into the wiki about this... here: http://wiki.boards.ie/wiki/BikeToWork

4) If my bike is stolen, I've to shell out?

Of course. Consider getting a good lock (or two) on the scheme, I think they're covered too.

5) Whats to stop me cycling it once and then giving up?

Not much really.

6) What if I drive to work once/twice/a few times/half the year, etc?

Clueless?!?

Same as above, I think you've to sign something saying you'll cycle to work on it but it's difficult to see how it'll be dealt with. In reality I don't think they can really enforce it.

Check out http://www.bikescheme.ie/ too, there's more info there.

UsedtobePC

I'm in charge of supposedly implementing the scheme at work and while everything and everybody seems to be ready to roll (HR, payroll, staff) we're being held back by the lack of funds in this financial year's budget (my company operates a Apr - Mar financial year) to pay for the bikes.
At the same time, because of the lack of knowledge about the scheme nothing was budgeted for next year ergo, we have a problem and no will to solve it.

the_syco

A few people are going for it here. As the plant is near to where they live, it's generating a high take-up.

Also, I've learnt that a few people are ordering bikes from Poland. A bike that costs €400 here costs €100 there, and the postage is only €170, so they get acheap bike. Think there's a €300 limit here, not sure though.

seamus

Dónal wrote: »

Same as above, I think you've to sign something saying you'll cycle to work on it but it's difficult to see how it'll be dealt with. In reality I don't think they can really enforce it.

I would imagine they're relying on the fact that anyone who's not at least willing to give cycling a go couldn't be bothered buying a bike through this scheme just to save a few shillings.

I would expect there to be a high "failure" rate, i.e. a lot of people who'll try it for two days a week for two weeks and then give up. I would expect the government have also factored that in, but at the same time if 10,000 people "try" it and 10% decide they enjoy it, that's not a bad result. It's a step towards building up that critical mass.
I also wouldn't penalise someone for giving it a go and then not keeping it up by insisting that they pay full whack for the bike or something - this will just discourage people from giving it a go in the first place.

FrankGrimes

stuf wrote: »

The admin for the company is just based on the invoice from the bike shop - a single shop or limited bikes wouldn't make this any easier.

My work had the scheme implemented within two days of the first person asking about it. No drama at all and word of mouth has meant that about 10 out of 80 employees have taken it up so far. Any company that already implements the travel ticket scheme should be able to implement this easily.

I find it a bit weird that you imagined all the problems that might happen and then chose not to ask on that basis. You might have saved as much with the UK purchase but not bothering to ask based on supposition is a bit sad really

The challenge here is scalability - sure a company with 80 employees and 10 participants can handle the requests on an ad-hoc basis. Once you go into larger organisations you need a standard, scalable, repeatable, low confusion and low error process.

No HR department of any large organisation would sign-up to any scheme like this until they have had an opportunity to define such a process and assess the impact on their resources, particularly for orgs over 1000 employees and at a time when the HR department may already by operating at over 100% utilization given that many orgs are losing headcount or at least not replacing those that leave voluntarily. You're entitled to disagree with that, but I can't see how anyone who has actual experience in this area would seek to trivialise it.

Your "The admin for the company is just based on the invoice from the bike shop - a single shop or limited bikes wouldn't make this any easier." point is very far off the mark. The HR department have to actually purchase the bike/gear from the shop and any large organisation will seek to standardize this process as opposed to the off the cuff 'sure order it yourself there Jimmy and just get them to send through the invoice to me and I'll take care of it' approach you can get away with when you are only dealing with 10 orders in a small company.

I would envisage a larger HR department putting in place a process whereby they use at the very least a spreadsheet to collate orders from their employees and limiting the choices to a specific list of SKUs from a specific supplier, with size being the only additional variable and this would greatly simplify it for the HR dept. The alternative whereby Jimmy emails in saying 'I want a Focus Cayo Variado 2008 from Wiggle, they should have one left in my size - 58cm' and Joe phones HR saying 'I want a Lappiere 400 from CycleSuperstore....' would be significantly more complex for the HR department. Why? Well for one, large organisations have a Procurement department and would probably have to setup a new vendor account (time consuming) for each supplier and this goes against Procurement best practice of always utilizing a narrower set of vendors (each with breadth and depth product offerrings) as opposed to managing multiple vendors for the same product/service category.

The flexi travel initiative involved a single supplier with a very limited set of SKUs with no variables (e.g. no size, colour to select) so it is incorrect to assume that this program is equally simple to implement for large organisations.

And in my personal case, I saved around €1200 compared to prices for similar spec in Irlenad by purchasing an end of line 2008 model on the day of close to, if not the, best ever exchange rate. Based on my extensive knowledge of what is actually involved in rolling-out initiatives like this in large organisations, I was quite confident that it would take months to set up and would also not facilitate orders from UK online suppliers. Compare that to the maximum ~€500 (higher rate of income tax plus PRSI savings) that I could make on a higher base price in Ireland and I'm pretty sure any objective reviewer would be pretty damn happy with that result.

Lumen

FrankGrimes wrote: »

Stuff

Translation: HR/finance departments in large organisations are full of feckless, nail-painting halfwits, for whom ordering a bike requires weeks of procrastination, arse-covering and spreadsheet-building.

Honestly, how hard can it be?

Wiggle.co.uk, company credit card, e-mail to accounts, job done.

Who wants a job? :pac:

Vélo

I sent an email to everyone in my work place saying we're now offering it.

The only work I could see was organising a form to be completed by the person who's availing of it. I'll just set up a file and keep the relevant info in it. I only set this up this morning after reading the thread and I don't think anyone will avail of it as I said it to them before but you never know. We only have about 10 working with us so there's not really any work in it for me. I was the 1st to avail of it:D.

seamus

Lumen wrote: »

Honestly, how hard can it be?

Wiggle.co.uk, company credit card, e-mail to accounts, job done.

To be honest, while yes there is a bit more effort for larger companies in terms of setting up a defined process, it is also true that many people in administration departments are either ridiculously incompetent or ridiculously lazy when it comes to these things.

I was looking to buy in PC parts for a place I used to work for, looking to get them online for half the price that our "preferred" supplier had quoted. I was told that "setting up a vendor in the system is a lot of work" and to go with the normal supplier.

Now I work in a different company supporting said system, and setting up a vendor is a 60 second piece of work, maybe 5 minutes if you don't have all of the information.

The only issue is that you would need to designate one person to look after these things, because the whole process is cross-departmental. Finance have to receive the invoice and pay for it, HR have to apply it to your employee record, Payroll have to arrange the deductions and accounting have to do their trickery to allocate it properly.

However, it's a process which 3 people in a room for 2 hours could easily figure out and which could be tested and applied in less than a week (less than a day if you had nothing else to do). It's all about the will.

Sniipe

Hey Donal, thanks for the reply, great information there.

I'm sending an email to my HR department to see what they will do.

Last question; My G/F works with the HSE, don't know if they will be doing it, but lets say they do. She has a bike already and cycles to work. Can she buy a road bike and not use it for work and use her first bike? IE buying a bike for herself when she has a bike already and not using the newer bike for work.

petethedrummer

"One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea."
Walter Bagehot
English economist & journalist (1826 - 1877)

FrankGrimes

Lumen wrote: »

Translation: HR/finance departments in large organisations are full of feckless, nail-painting halfwits, for whom ordering a bike requires weeks of procrastination, arse-covering and spreadsheet-building.

That may well be true, but if so, it just further strenghtens the need to have a simple and fool-proof process in place before launching it. If you were managing that department you'd want to limit the risk of your halfwits messing up and reducing the number of steps they need to take so that it doesn't impact their ability to deliver on their core tasks.

Lumen wrote: »

Honestly, how hard can it be?

Noone said it was hard - the challenge is getting the stakeholder committment for HR to take it on. Like it or not, that is the way large organisations work.

Each HR department will naturally be working on doing whatever is in their scope today while also probably managing some improvement initiatives. This cycle to work scheme is just another thing to be added to their list so management of that work will want to keep the resource requirement to a minimum by limiting the variables and standardizing the process. From their perspective, they would argue that they already operating at least 100% workload and so they will need leadership sponsorship to take this on (regardless of how much/little work is involved) and will then need to minimize the impact to their teams.

If HR had someone leave 2 months ago and have not been allowed replace them due to a hiring freeze, even if this initiative only involves 10 hours of one persons time per week, it is quite possible they might not be able to facilitate it at the moment.

Like it or not, that is the way large organisations work. The con is that it takes time to get things up and running, the pros are that when it does get up and running it is done in a way that is scalable and efficient.

Stark

Sniipe wrote: »

Last question; My G/F works with the HSE, don't know if they will be doing it, but lets say they do. She has a bike already and cycles to work. Can she buy a road bike and not use it for work and use her first bike? IE buying a bike for herself when she has a bike already and not using the newer bike for work.

Don't really see why not. There's no minimum usage for the bike. I'll probably do the same myself as I have a hybrid already.

Lumen

Stark wrote: »

Don't really see why not. There's no minimum usage for the bike. I'll probably do the same myself as I have a hybrid already.

I was under the impression that the empoloyee must intend at the time of purchase to use the bike for commuting. Unless something has changed in the final leglisation, what you've proposed goes against the scheme. Whether it's enforceable or not is another issue.

connond

Both the Sunday Times and Irish Independent stories are total cr*p - based on a reply to a Parliamentary Question to the Department of Finance (in part to find out if they are bothering their arses to promote the scheme, which they're not). The reply said one bike supplier had been in touch with them. Green Party offices have had hundreds of enquiries, and forwarded many of them to the Department of Finance.

Ciaran Cuffe just put out an explanatory statement.

Key point: "The bikescheme.ie website [...] has received inquiries from HR staff or employees at some of the biggest companies in Ireland, including: Aer Lingus, eBay, Iarnroid Éireann, eircom, Ericsson, RTE and Tesco.There have been over 7,300 unique visitors to the site and over 1,000 people have registered to download an information pack."

Mucco

I see this incentive as only one spoke in the wheel (:D) of getting people to cycle.

We also need showers and changing rooms at work - make it compulsory for planning, and give incentives for older buildings to install them.
Advertising, community grants etc...
If we muct have cycle lanes, can we have proper lanes?
The parking levy should be passed directly to motorists - more incentive to cycle - I once worked in a place where we were paid €2 per day for not using the car park.