City of Melbourne seeks new operator for share e-bicycles
One year after the oBike debacle left Melbourne streets a mess, a new form of share bicycles could soon be on the way — but there’s one major difference.
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The harsh lessons of the oBike debacle will be learnt as City of Melbourne seeks a new operator to run an shared electric bicycle scheme.
Town Hall is seeking expressions of interest from share e-bike operators in the wake of the oBike mess and now that the “blue bike” scheme has been scrapped.
Transport chairman Cr Nicolas Frances Gilley said the council wanted to identify “responsible and innovative operators’’ who could offer a trial e-bike service.
“We learnt a lot from the oBike scheme, which brought new and unexpected challenges for our city. Operators will need to prove their scheme is safe, well managed, will not contribute to clutter and will help improve the efficiency of the transport system,” Cr Frances Gilley said.
The move comes as Yarra councillors will on Tuesday night consider a proposal from Uber-owner Jump to provide shared e-bikes on its streets.
Thousands of yellow share oBikes were dumped on the city’s streets – without council consultation – in mid-2017 but the bikes were left abandoned and ill-treated by many users, while dozens of the bicycles were dumped in the Yarra or jammed in trees.
The Singapore-based parent company pulled out a year later and went into liquidation.
The state government scrapped the blue-bike operation after eight years because it said the scheme was not used enough to justify a costly upgrade.
The Melbourne council now wants to consider one-year pilot of a shared e-bike scheme after a “rigorous evaluation’’ process.
Central to this would be guarantees to manage e-bike locations and storage with geo-fencing technology, as well as providing high-quality machines.
“A fleet of e-bikes is an expensive asset, so we expect operators would be keeping a close eye on where they are parked and regularly checking them to ensure the batteries are charged,” Cr Frances Gilley said.
It’s the beginning of the end for Melbourne Bike Share @ElliotFishman #racv #Melbourne #bikeshare pic.twitter.com/fJbOWgTBdz
— Vaughn Allan (@_vaughnallan) November 18, 2019
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“It’s important that operators offer geo-fencing to stop the bikes being parked in certain areas along with around-the-clock remote monitoring of the bikes and where they are located.
“E-bike share schemes operate successfully in many cities in the world. E-bikes can help people ride longer distances and get to where they’re going quicker.’’
It’s believed some e-bike operators have already contacted the council.
The Melbourne bicycle scheme could also operate with another council, Port Phillip, which governs St Kilda, Albert Park, Middle Park, Port Melbourne and South Melbourne.
The latest move is for electric share bicycles only, not for electric scooters which have been introduced by Lime in Brisbane and trialled in Adelaide.
Lime, which also has an e-bike fleet, has pushed to set up its scooter operations in Melbourne but has met councils’ resistance amid safety and legal concerns.