Some interesting stuff going on in Singapore’s world of bike sharing.
They’re approaching the problem of errant bike-parking by regulating the companies via a licensing regime, which will begin later this year, according to Today.
From what I can make of it, operators must
– be licensed, or face a S$10,000 fine and/or six months in jail
– be responsible for the parking of bikes within designated parking locations, or lose their licence or find their fleet size reduced
Users will also be watched, under a geo fencing scheme that will require them to scan a QR code at the designated parking locations before ending their trip. Failure to do so will mean they’ll be charged continuously — I guess meaning the meter will keep running (not sure how this would work with the flat monthly rates all three operators are currently offering).
Readers have already pointed out potential flaws:
– what happens if there’s no space at the designated area?
– what happens if someone moves the bike after the user has scanned their code?
And Today pointed out in a piece that there need to be more designated areas to make this work. It’s fine picking up and parking a bike at a subway station or a bus stop, but what about when you’ve pedaled back to your home?
Singapore, as ever, is taking a positive but cautious approach to the sharing economy. I quite agree that companies are so far not incentivised to distribute their bikes with consideration, or to monitor them after they’ve been deployed. So something has to change. But also the usefulness of these bikes is going to decline rapidly if users aren’t able to leave the bikes within a few meters of their home for fear of draining their digital wallets.
More importantly, Singapore needs to consider what more it can do to encourage bike usage — by rapidly expanding its bike paths, by offering guidance to users about how and where they can use the bikes, and generally rewarding their use. As China has found, the more these bikes are used, the more other people feel comfortable using them and the quicker a social code of conduct emerges about their usage.