AN AWARD-winning Bournemouth company has enabled bus passengers to easily find out where they can hire a Beryl Bike.

Westbourne-based Passenger is behind the platforms which allow users of Yellow Buses, Morebus and Unibus to see live information about the availability of the bicycles.

The Beryl Bikes scheme in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole is working towards having 1,000 bicycles that can be easily hired from designated bays. The locations of the bays and available bikes can now be seen on the Morebus and Unibus websites and the Yellow Buses site and app.

Passenger’s chief executive, Tom Quay, said: “The project has given the partners a great opportunity to work closely together.

“With everyone at the same table we’ve been able to deliver a project quickly that has a positive impact on lots of people locally,” he added.

Passenger worked with Beryl Bikes, Morebus and Yellow Buses on the project. Beryl provided real time information about its bikes through application program interface (API), enabling Passenger to make that information available to customers.

Philip Ellis, co-founder and chief executive of Beryl, said: “By joining up travel options we’re making sustainable travel an easier choice.

“Working with the local bus companies means that travelling by bike and bus, as part of the same journey, will become a realistic travel option for even more people.”

It was revealed last year that Passenger, based at Seamoor Road, created the 11 highest-rated smartphone apps for bus passengers in the UK.

Cllr Andy Hadley, BCP Council’s cabinet member for transport, said: “As a major urban area we know we have huge congestion challenges, and limited space to build new capacity. We want to make alternative travel options more integrated and in doing so, set an example of what collaboration can achieve. If we are to address our climate emergency we must work together to make it easy to leave the car at home, especially for shorter journeys.”

Andrew Wickham, managing director at Go South Coast, which operates Morebus and Unibus, said: “By working together with the other public transport operators, including Beryl, we can encourage more residents out of their cars.”