Humans ruined bike-sharing in Singapore so now bikes need parking zones
Ah, the freedom of a dockless bike. So much more convenient than something like Citi Bike, where you have to park your rental bike back at a set location.
See, the whole point of bike rentals from the likes Ofo, Mobike, oBike (and so on) is that you can pick a bike, ride it, leave it by the side of the road when you're done, and walk away.
Too bad humans had to ruin it.
The city of Singapore has decided that enough is enough with all the bike dumping and irresponsible behaviour that's come along with the recent trend in dockless bike services.
By the end of the year, all the five rental services here will have to put in geo-fencing technology in their bikes, to ensure that people park their bikes back at "designated parking zones" -- basically, a virtual dock.
Additionally, the five operators will have to remove faulty bicycles within a day, and ensure that users are covered by public liability insurance.
In the past, finding those faulty bikes would've proven challenging, since people were leaving them under bridges, up in trees, rivers, and even concealing them down dark stairwells in buildings. The new parking rules will help operators find more bikes.
Hopefully, having to put your bike back in a public place will also put an end to the rampant vandalism that has plagued these services. In nearly every country that these bikes have launched in, we've seen bikes stripped for parts, painted to be concealed (and therefore stolen for an individual's own use), and so on.
Mobike's country manager in Singapore, Sharon Meng, said in a statement after the new rules were signed on Thursday, that the company has already drawn out parking zones in several neighbourhoods in Singapore.
The new geo-fence will kick in in November for its bikes, which are already GPS-enabled, she added.
An Ofo spokesperson said the Ofo app will send a notification to users if they don't park in one of the designated zones. "Exact details on penalties will be provided nearer to the end of the year."
While the new rules mean we'll continue to see these rental bikes on the roads for now, the virtual dock is a far cry from the initial sales pitch of having a "smarter" and freer bike system. For which we can only blame ourselves.
UPDATE: Oct. 5, 2017, 6:09 p.m. UTC Updated with a response from Ofo.
Victoria Ho is Mashable's Asia Editor, based in Singapore. She previously reported on news and tech at The Business Times, TechCrunch and ZDNet. When she isn't writing, she's making music with her band
