Questions over deposits as oBikes are run out of town

Singaporean bike share company oBike appears to have gone to ground as questions remain over whether users will have their deposits refunded and how quickly the company will rid Melbourne of the hundreds of bikes still on the streets.

Melbourne City Council said that oBike told them on Tuesday morning that it would be withdrawing from the city, after a strict crackdown imposed by the Environmental Protection Authority a fortnight ago.

Under the new rules, the Singaporean company would have been required to pay $3000 in fines if an abandoned bike blocked a street for two hours.

Some reacted positively to the company's withdrawal, but Bicycle Network chief executive Craig Richards said it was a great shame that oBike had been driven out of town.

“Cities all around the world are embracing dockless bike share but here in Melbourne people couldn’t help but throw them in the river and whinge. We missed a golden opportunity to help Melbourne hold onto its mantle as the world's most liveable city,” he said.

The company did not responds to questions from The Age on Tuesday over whether users should expect to have their $69 deposits returned.

In the company's terms of service, oBike says the deposit is refundable at any time, but will take up to 30 working days for it to be returned to the user's account.

However, it also states that when riders agree to the terms of service they also agree to "convert [the] deposit to oBike annual membership subscription (365 days)", a clause the came into effect in March this year.

Cyclists using the service have been urged by Melbourne lord mayor Sally Capp to immediately stop riding the yellow bikes as council begins to collect the bikes.

There are roughly 200 bikes still in Melbourne, 120 in the City of Port Phillip and between 60 and 100 in the City of Yarra.

Cr Capp said the council was working closely with oBike to collect the remaining bikes.

"The clean-up process is that we’re working with oBikes to collect the bikes. The difficulty is that people are still using the bikes," Cr Capp said.

Lord mayor Sally Capp announces that oBikes are leaving.Credit: Jason South

Representatives from Port Phillip and Yarra councils said they had tried to contact the company on Tuesday to get clarification about the withdrawal, but had received no response.

The yellow rental bikes have been controversial in Melbourne, with hundreds left strewn on footpaths and roads and more than 100 fished out of the Yarra River since the company started in Melbourne on June 14 last year, leaving them just two days shy of one year of operation.

In addition to being dumped in the Yarra, oBikes have been left in trees, on street signs, and, in one instance, stacked on top of a portaloo.

So long oBikes ... Credit: Ashwini Rao

Cr Capp said the actions of some riders had made it hard to manage the bike-sharing system.

“What’s made it very difficult for everybody involved is the behaviour of people using the oBikes,” she said.

“It’s so hard to regulate people’s behaviour in the way that they’re using oBikes.''

The EPA's chief executive Nial Finegan said the company would be fined for any bikes that were left behind.

The failure of oBike in Melbourne won't mean the end of dockless bike sharing for Melbourne. Beijing-based company MoBike is planning on launching here later this year, after rolling out in Sydney and the Gold Coast.

"Just because there are some challenges for some players doesn't mean the sector overall has challenges," said MoBike Australia general manager Mina Nada.

"The way we engage with the community and councils is totally different – we make a point of not entering a city before we have existing partnerships with relevant government entities and we have engaged with communities."

He said now people were more familiar with the dockless share bike concept they were "waiting for someone that can do it right".

OBikes have been found in all sorts of places.Credit: Justin McManus

The withdrawal from the Melbourne market comes weeks after the City of Adelaide council ordered oBike out of the South Australian capital after granting it a permit to operate in October last year.

A spokesman from the City of Sydney said the company is still operating in the city.

With Michael Wastell, Evan Grahame