Organisations of all sizes are being urged to team up with a new West Midlands bike share scheme, set to be the largest outside of London.

Nextbike says the bike share scheme in the West Midlands will be the largest outside of London

Run by Nextbike, the initiative builds on the success of the firm’s schemes in areas such as Cardiff and will see 5,000 bikes and 500 stations deployed across the West Midlands, along with three planned service and maintenance hubs. It is expected to create 50 new jobs, including area managers, van drivers and mechanics. Docking stations will be located around key sites in the towns and cities involved, with bikes available 24 hours a day.

Phase one of the programme, which launched on 1 February, saw the scheme’s first 25 bikes available for self-service hire in Wolverhampton, along with five docking stations around the city.

Initial conversations have shown that organisations, both large and small, are keen to get involved in various ways, including branding partnerships, community partnerships, equipment partnerships, corporate memberships for employers and campus memberships for universities and colleges.

Packages include discounted memberships for employees, allowing organisations to encourage a healthier commute for their workers.

Nextbike UK MD, Krysia Solheim said: “We’ve had lots of interest in our equipment partnership option, which includes having stations located outside offices or places of work. Employers are serious about providing transport options for their workforce and helping keep them healthy, and we are happy to co-locate stations to enable that.”

Nextbike is already surveying locations across the West Midlands in preparation for the next phase of the project, which will see hundreds of bikes on the streets by the end of the year.

Solheim added: “Our ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life in our regions by transforming the way people move throughout them. Our transportation strategies need to align more closely with our health, environmental, social, air quality and economic goals – and we cannot achieve that alone. It is going to take all of us, working together, to reshape our regions.”