A Taichung City Government official has warned the Singapore-based oBike rental system to stay away from the municipality, vowing to “tow every oBike in the city.”
Unlike the YouBike system in Taipei and New Taipei City, oBike does not rely on bicycle stations; its bicycles can be rented and left anywhere in the region using the oBike mobile app.
Each bike is fitted with a GPS tracker enabling the company to find and retrieve bikes.
Taichung’s iBike system has more than 6,000 bicycles at more than 213 stations, Taichung Transportation Bureau Director-General Wang Yi-chuan (王義川) said on Thursday, adding that daily ridership exceeds 20,000.
More than 10 million people have registered for the system since its launch, he said.
Wang said he has told oBike representatives that the company must offer a clear system for the management of its bicycles and users must not leave bikes outside of designated zones.
If the company is unable to meet the requirements, it should stay out of Taichung, Wang said.
The company claims to be a bike-sharing company, but it is a bike rental company, he said, adding that true-bike sharing is offering one’s own bikes to others free of charge, and the city government would not stand for a company occupying public roads for its own profit.
The iBike system has fixed stations for bikes, as well as maintenance services performed by contracted companies, Wang said, adding that with the iBike system, there is order, but the oBike system has brought chaos.
Regarding the company continuing to ship its bikes to Taichung, Wang said the city government would remove the bikes — although he did not say where — by administrative order even if the bikes were parked in a designated area.
Taichung would follow New Taipei City’s lead on deciding whether to impose fines on the company to return the impounded bikes, Wang said.
Bikes that are parked outside designated areas would be immediately impounded and the person coming to claim the bike would be fined NT$750 for illegal parking and removal and storage fees, Wang said.
Each oBike is worth about NT$3,000 in overhead, and four fines would be the equivalent of the company losing one bike, Wang said, adding that he hopes the firm will not challenge the city’s authority.
Separately, Changhua County on Thursday welcomed the oBike system.
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