City scholars & Beryl embark on knowledge transfer partnership

City scholars from the University of London have embarked on a ‘knowledge transfer partnership’ with smart bike share company, Beryl.

The partnership, led by Senior Lecturer Dr Andrea Baronchelli, Dr Chris Child and associate Dr Soumya Dasgupta, is supported by a £287,000 grant from Innovate UK.

The collaboration will see scholars from the university gather and analyse data on bike usage within an urban context with the aim of leading to improved outcomes for the design of sustainable cities.

Dr Baronchelli said the partnership, “will give City academics a wonderful opportunity to investigate smart bike share schemes with a world-leading industrial partner, and, more broadly, advance our understanding of urban mobility through the analysis of an unprecedented wealth of data.”

Beryl co-founder, Phil Ellis, added: “Beryl are very pleased to be working with City, University of London, with funding support from Innovate UK. We have developed leading products and technology and have an experienced bike share operations team.

“Our project will help us build technology solutions that allow us to dynamically predict and improve our operations, getting the right number of bikes to the right places. We are very fortunate to have recruited Dr Soumya Dasgupta to this project, a leading data scientist in the field of urban mobility.”

In May, Beryl announced its latest bike share partnership with the City of London Corporation which will see the delivery of a dockless cycling elements from the Corporation’s transport strategy launched at the 2019 London Cycling and Walking Conference.