It's just been three months after the first bike-sharing company arrived in Singapore, but reports of abuse and vandalism(故意破坏)of shared bikes in the city keep appearing on social media.
The majority of these shared bikes are stationless, which means they don't need to be stopped at a designated(指定的)spot. They lock themselves after your ride is over, and you're meant to just leave the bike at the side of a road.
But users have been chaining up bicycles outside their apartments, preventing others from using them. Some people bring them up to their apartment floors, so they can't be found easily by other users. Some people have removed the bikes' number plates or codes, and some even have painted over the bikes to claim the bikes for themselves. Most of the abused bikes belong to either Singapore-based oBike, or ofo, a bike-sharing giant based in China.
ofo has encouraged Singaporean users to report issues. oBike said that the number of bicycles that were damaged made up less than one percent of its fleet. The company said in February that it planned to bring in “tens of thousands” of bikes by mid-2017. The company has yet to ban anyone from its service, but said that it would take appropriate action – including making reports to the police.
oBike also introduced a shortcoming system, similar tothatof its competitor, China-based Mobike. Users start with 100 points, which get taken away for errant(出格的)behaviour such as forgetting to lock the bike, or parking at non-designated areas. Users are banned from using oBike when their scores reach zero. oBike has an eight-man operation team that can remove bicycles parked casually.
When approached for comment, Mobike said, “In China, just as in Singapore, there are always a tiny minority of people who abuse the bikes, so we designed our system to prevent this type of abuse.”