Virgin Media engineers get on their bikes and ride

Faster, greener

29 October 2007 10:30 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

From November, London-based Virgin Media customers might find service technicians arriving at their homes in full biker leathers.

The company is piloting a scheme where a number of specially trained engineers on motorbikes will be working alongside the existing fleet of vans, but in this case unhindered by city-centre congestion.

Traditional van-based engineers can spend a lot of time sitting in traffic trying to reach their next appointment.

The speedy on-bike techs can slip through traffic jams and get to customers at their allocated appointment times. The company says not only will this enable more home visits per day, but it will ensure better levels of service.

Virgin estimates that a bike would spend a third of the time travelling from job to job than a van. A tech on a bike will also use less than a third of the fuel that a van would use during a year. So as well as reducing customer waiting times, using a bike would drastically reduce fuel consumption and the company's carbon footprint.

Initially the pilot scheme will just run in London but the could be rolled out to other key cities around the country.