SINGAPORE — A total of 62 bicycles from three bike-sharing companies were impounded for obstructing footpaths in a week-long operation, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said on Tuesday (Jan 23).

Removal notices were issued to 292 bicycles found on footpaths, and the companies were given half a day to remove them.

The enforcement operation between Jan 15 and 21 covered areas such as Yuan Ching Road in Jurong, Alexandra district, Woodlands Centre Road and Dunearn Road.

Most of the impounded bicycles — 24 of them — were from Singapore operator oBike, while 22 and 16 were from China-based firms ofo and Mobike respectively.

The three firms face a fine of up to S$500 for each bicycle that was parked indiscriminately.

In its Facebook post, the LTA said: “We have been working together with bike-sharing operators and reminding them to remove these bicycles. (They) should manage their bicycles and ensure that their users park their bicycles responsibly in designated parking spaces.”

When asked why their bikes were not removed within the time frame given, Mr Tim Phang, general manager of oBike Singapore, told TODAY: “At times, external factors such as inclement weather may impact the redeployment process and result in a slower response time. Our operations team will assess each situation and conduct the retrieval and redeployment in the safest and most efficient manner possible.”

The firm has a team who re-distributes bikes throughout the day to areas of demand, he said. “To ensure that we re-deploy indiscriminately parked bikes, our maintenance team adheres to a schedule, going around the island checking on various locations. At the same time, we are working with the authorities to increase the number of parking spaces for bike-sharing.”

As for safeguards to prevent the bicycles from being parked haphazardly, Mr Phang said that since October last year, it has been using geofencing, a technology that helps determine if bicycles are parked in designated parking zones.

“Many of these parking zones are easily identifiable by yellow boxes, while some parking zones are virtual and can only be viewed on the mobile application... indicated by the letter ‘P’. Users are required to cycle to any of these designated parking zone to park their bicycles,” he added.

In its response to TODAY, ofo said that it remains “committed to adding more resources” to ensure it responds to LTA’s requests within the half-day time frame.

The firm has been actively working with the LTA to launch a nationwide initiative to create more designated parking areas across the island. It is also partnering LTA and the Singapore Kindness Movement to “broadly disseminate ofo riding guidelines” to educate users on safe and responsible cycling and parking habits.

“We have to ensure that they understand and respect their bike-share responsibilities and follow the parking regulations here,” its spokesperson said.

When contacted, Mobike said that there is a “very small number of users are not yet familiar with proper bike-sharing etiquette” and it is constantly working to encourage users to play their part in “creating a positive bike-sharing environment”.   

Ms Sharon Meng, country manager of Mobike Singapore, said that the firm is making progress in enhancing operations, for example, it has done a successful trial of geofencing technology in compliance with LTA’s regulations, and identified “hundreds of Mobike parking spots” where there is strong demand for its bikes. “By the end of the year, we will use IoT (Internet of Things) technology to form geofences around smart parking locations without requiring physical barriers.”