Bike-sharing platform Mobike will be adding 50 bicycle parking zones in Singapore, and will roll out up to 1,000 by the end of the year. These designated bicycle parking areas are now available to Mobike users at university campuses, shopping malls and office buildings, the company said yesterday. Users can locate them using the Mobike mobile application.
Some of the locations are Singapore Management University, the National University of Singapore, Republic Polytechnic, Velocity@Novena, United Square, OneKM Mall, and office blocks, including 10, Raeburn Park and Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park 2.
The China-based company's bikes are equipped with smart bike parking technology, it said. It can monitor whether users have parked their bicycle correctly, and trigger an alert in their phone to remind them to park within the marked area.
The app will reward users who park in designated areas with credits, and give demerit points for inappropriate parking, Mobike said. "We... want to enable communities across the city to benefit from bike-sharing without the parking confusion," said Mr. Florian Bohnert, Mobike Head of International Expansion.
There are two other bike-sharing firms here, oBike and ofo. Mobike, the newest player, launched its service here on 21st March, after quietly rolling out its bicycles over the past few months. The Government said last month it would scrap plans to launch a public bicycle-sharing scheme as private firms were fulfilling the demand for the service. But some errant users have abused the service by parking the bicycles in inappropriate places, keeping them for personal use or damaging them.
