Over 10.5 million journeys were made using Santander Cycles during 2018 according to TfL, but growth rates have slowed over the past couple of years.

There has been an average of 29,500 hires each day this year, the highest daily average since the scheme started in 2010. Christmas Day saw more than 35,000 hires as Londoners took to cycling on a day when no other public transport exists.

There were five consecutive months this year where TfL’s scheme achieved more than one million hires. In total there have been more than 77m journeys since the scheme was launched in July 2010.

However, growth in use of the Santander Cycle hire scheme is slowing as just 100,000 additional journeys were made in 2018 vs 2017, and of those, 43,500 can be attributed to the expansion of the scheme to Brixton in February.

Cycling as a whole is on the rise though, up roughly a third since 2010, and the two dockless companies, Ofo and Mobile will have added to the competition for cycle hire schemes in London.