Sydney rental bike companies agreement on dumping and vandalism
FOUR major bike sharing companies in Sydney have signed a 12 point agreement made public this afternoon with six councils to deal with vandalised and dumped bikes strewn across the city.
Southern Courier
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FOUR of Sydney’s major rental bike operators have agreed to comply within three months to a new set of guidelines made public this afternoon aimed at curbing the number of bikes dumped or vandalised across the city.
A coalition of six councils — Randwick, Sydney, Inner West, Canada Bay, Waverley and Woollahra — brokered the 12-point plan on December 21 in which Reddy Go, oBike, Ofo and Mobike all agreed to participate.
The raft of guidelines include a three hour response time to remove “dangerously placed” bikes, while those which remain in one spot for up to 10 days are relocated.
Access to better customer service was also negotiated.
“Operators must enable easy reporting of faulty or damaged bikes, missing helmets of bikes parked in inappropriate locations through their app, website, email and a fully dedicated phone number available 24/7,” the guidelines state.
Dangerously placed bikes have been classified as those which cause an unreasonable hazard being parked across roads and clearways.
“There were very specific issues around how, and within what time frame, companies would deal with dumped and damaged bikes and we’ve been able to come to a reasonable agreement on this,” Randwick’s Deputy Mayor Alexandra Luxford said.
“Operators have also agreed to implement ‘geo-fencing’, which encourages users to leave bikes in preferred parking zones.
“We all want to see a reduction in piles of bikes littering our landscape and I believe that these guidelines will help to shape a better outcome for both residents and bike hire companies.”
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Councils also reserve the right to impound bikes at any time as a matter of public safety.
In using the services, rental bike users will also be handing over data collected from the apps to councils.
The commercial-in-confidence information includes trip origins and destinations, trip durations and patterns of distribution.
They will be reviewed every three months and councils also reserve the right amend them provided they give operators 14 days’ notice.