Gold Coast Transport: Rideshare program Mobike to exit Gold Coast market

Popular rideshare company Mobike will exit the Gold Coast market immediately, after terminating its contract with the Gold Coast City Council.

POPULAR rideshare company Mobike will exit the Gold Coast market immediately, after terminating its contract with the Gold Coast City Council.

The Chinese company’s new owners have decided to withdraw all of its business to China less than two years after the program was set up on the Coast.

The colourful orange bikes are expected to be gone from the city’s streets within weeks.

Mobike launched last year Picture: Jerad Williams

Mayor Tom Tate said council would move quickly to launch tenders for a new service in the hopes of having a bike rideshare program operating again by Christmas.

“They have a new ownership which is restructuring, so they are pulling out of here even though we were the most successful city to use them outside China,” he said.

“I have looked at the data and we have had 90,000 users in 18 months so given its popularity we will go out and re-tender.

“We will simply get another mode.”

Mobike CEO Mina Nada visited the Gold Coast when the system launched. Photo Richard Gosling

Mobike contacted council’s transport director and asked for the contract to be terminated with two years still to run.

Cr Tate said the system was a proven success and would ask the successful tenderer to follow a similar model as Mobike.

“I thought (Mobike) wanted to expand but when you have a new owner and a new direction they made a corporate decision,” he said.

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The bikes will be returned to China.

“They have limited capital and want to expand in China - it’s a big country.”

The rideshare program was approved by council in 2017 and was launched in early 2018 during the lead-up to the Commonwealth Games.