More following shared-bike parking rules

Users of shared bicycles have become more careful about where they park their two-wheelers.

The number of cases of indiscriminate parking of such bikes has dropped to about one in 10 shared-bike trips, down from four in 10, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said yesterday. In proportional terms, it fell from 44% of all trips in January to just 13% last month.

The plunge came after regulatory measures were introduced in January. LTA also announced that start-up Moov Technology, which was managing 1,000 bikes in the last three months, has been given a full bike-sharing licence to operate a fleet of up to 10,000 bicycles.

The annual fee for a full licence is $15 a bicycle. LTA told The Straits Times that Moov got the licence because it showed it can meet the stipulated licence conditions and performance standards.

"It has an excellent operations plan to ensure efficient bicycle deployment and retrieval," LTA said. With Moov, the total number of shared bikes here is expected to reach 45,000 by the middle of next month.

The other two full-licence operators are Anywheel with 10,000 bikes and Mobike with 25,000. Mobike, however, is in the midst of transferring its licence to SGBike, a change approved by LTA.

LTA said it will continue to review fleet sizes to ensure users' demands are satisfied without causing undue social problems. The drop in improper parking comes in the wake of the 14 January launch of an islandwide QR code bicycle system, which requires cyclists to scan a QR code at a designated bicycle parking zone when parking their two-wheelers.

Those who fail to do so will be charged $5, plus their rental fees. A cyclist who commits three such offences in a year will be banned from using bicycle-sharing services for a month.