Australia's bikesharing economy has a big dumping problem—but it's not unique
Dockless bikesharing should be a highly effective way of getting folks active, providing cheap transport, reducing emissions and unclogging high traffic CBDs. But people can't stop dumping the damn things in rivers, can they?
Because we can't have nice things, bikesharing services have been plagued by vandals across the globe for months. This week, Australia's problem has hit boiling point, with bike-sharing service oBike recovering many bikes dumped in strange places — including 42 bikes from Melbourne's Yarra River on Tuesday alone.
"Since our launch, we have had a few who abused our bikes either by dismantling them or throwing them into canals. This was disappointing," oBike's head of marketing, Chethan Rangaswamy, told Mashable via email.
"But we had a few bright sparks. For every abuse case, there had been many more who exhibited positive riding behaviors. We urge all users to treat our bikes as if they would their own. This is to ensure that all users can continue to enjoy and benefit from the service."
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Singapore-founded oBike is one of Australia's newer, dockless bike-sharing services available, launching in July 2017 shortly after rolling out rapidly across Southeast Asia in the first half of the year.
The company operates alongside dockless local competitors like ReddyGo, launched in June 2017.
Due to the dockless nature of the system, customers have been leaving the bikes anywhere they like — some have taken it upon themselves to leave them in extreme places — causing Victoria's State Government to put the company on notice.
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Filmmaker Tommy Jackett caused a buzz on social media on Saturday, posting an 'oBike fishing' video in which he pulls bike after bike from Melbourne's Yarra River. The post currently has over 250,000 views.
Australia's not the only country to see this kind of bike-sharing vandalism; Singapore saw its fair share earlier this year, with the likes of oBike and Chinese bike-sharing giant Ofo finding their bikes ditched in drains, stripped of parts, and even painted to obscure company branding.
Ofo told Mashable back in March that the solution was more bikes, so people didn't feel the need to hog them as a common commodity.
This towering pile of dumped bikes from several bikesharing startups garnered media interest in Jan. 2017, in Shenzhen, China. Mobike, one of the bike providers affected, told Mashable at the time that this "kind of behavior is isolated, but also criminal," adding that Mobike offers ride credits to users for rescuing stranded bikes.
The worst case scenario happened to Chinese startup Wukong Bike, which was forced to close after a mere six months after it lost nearly 90 percent of its bicycles to theft, vandalism and 'prank' ditches.
The U.S. has its fair share of bikeshare dumping too. New York startup JUMP, and California's LimeBike and Spin are apparently taking great pains to monitor bikes with ground teams. But Spin wasn't met with enthusiasm in NYC, and China-based Bluegogo has caused a few problems in San Francisco, with bikes strewn along city streets. LimeBike customers are dumping the bikes in weird places all over Seattle.
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After the shenanigans in Australia and Asia, and similar activities happening to its new London service too, oBike is no stranger to this kind of behaviour from customers. Optimistic, oBike is confident that customers will soon learn the etiquette of bike-sharing.
"Bike-sharing is still in its infancy stage now," says Rangaswamy. "As such, many cyclists are still not fully aware of the correct behaviors required to develop a socially gracious and courteous community of riders. This leads to issues such as the indiscriminate parking and vandalism. We are committed to engaging the public for ongoing education on cycling etiquette."
With a stream of new dockless bikesharing services and expansions of established companies in the works across the globe, let's hope folks learn not to throw bikes that don't belong to them in rivers.
Otherwise, these companies need a much better strategy — fast.
Shannon Connellan is Mashable's UK Editor based in London, formerly Mashable's Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives in the Creel House. A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror.
