Managing Parking and Use of Bicycles from Bike-sharing Schemes

Mr Ang Wei Neng asked the Minister for Transport (a) what is the policy of the Government on regulating dockless bicycle-sharing schemes; (b) since January 2017, what is the number of complaints received on the improper usage of dockless bicycles, including indiscriminate parking and vandalism; and (c) what is the number of dockless bicycles confiscated by the authorities and, of which, how many have been returned to the bicycle sharing firms.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has been coordinating with fellow Government agencies and Town Councils to align the approach against indiscriminate parking of shared bicycles. There are three elements in our approach.

First, ensure an adequate supply of parking spaces. LTA is working with the National Parks Board (NParks), the Housing and Development Board (HDB) and Town Councils to increase bicycle parking capacity within their premises. On LTA's part, it has implemented 34 bicycle parking zones, which can accommodate 1,400 bicycles at Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stations. These are quicker to implement than bicycle racks and LTA will be providing more, including near bus stops. At the same time, LTA will continue with its ongoing plans to add 6,000 more bicycle lots at various MRT stations, and another 500 lots in the city area by 2019.

Second, ensure the cooperation of the bicycle-sharing companies. LTA requires them to promptly remove the bicycles which are indiscriminately parked. It is in their interest to cooperate with the authorities. Any public backlash may make the business model unsustainable.

Third, strict enforcement against errant behaviour. If the indiscriminately parked bicycles are not removed within half a day, LTA will impound them, levy a fee on the bicycle-sharing companies for the resources used for the impounding, and fine the companies. LTA has received about 70 complaints of indiscriminate parking since the beginning of this year. This does not include the many comments on forum pages and social media. LTA has served around 1,000 notices for indiscriminately parked bicycles, of which 200 bicycles have been impounded, and about half of the impounded bicycles have been collected by the companies.

Mdm Speaker, can I check with the Senior Minister of State, in total, right now, how many dockless bicycles do we have in the market, and whether the three companies are in discussion with LTA to expand the number of bicycles rapidly, and whether any of the three companies have started to implement the geo-fencing scheme and the scheme to encourage people to park properly and also have some system to penalise the users who park improperly?

I would like to thank Mr Ang for the supplementary questions. At this point in time, there are a total of about 29,000 to 30,000 shared bicycles available in the market. LTA is engaging the bike-sharing operators to deploy their fleet in a responsible manner to prevent excessive, indiscriminate parking as well as disamenities to the public.

As to the Member's last question on geo-fencing, LTA is also working with the various bike-sharing companies to look into some of these innovative and technological solutions so that the prevalence of indiscriminate parking will also be minimised.

I have two supplementary questions. One would be the number of lots you have or have planned to put in place, are they sufficient? I looked at the plan and it is for 2019. The issues that are faced by my residents and many others in Singapore show that the bikes are indiscriminately parked if there are no parking spaces allocated for them. The regulatory framework today has to take into account that there are not enough parking places and that you need to enforce this a lot more stringently.

The second question relates to my Parliamentary Question on the level of enforcement. LTA has the enforcement authority but I think most of the other agencies have not implemented this. Are there plans to make this more consistent across all agencies?

I can give some data points. My Community Club, which is managed by the People's Association, for example, has 65 of these illegally parked. We have called the operators and they have not collected any of the bikes. They may not be interested in collecting them because the bikes may already have been paid for by deposits. To a certain sense, there is the business model issue, and there may not be interest for them to also collect the bikes. So, the level of enforcement may not be sufficient. Are there other plans to make enforcement more consistent across all agencies, not just LTA?

Mdm Speaker, I would like to thank Mr Zaqy Mohamad for the supplementary questions. The Member is right and I agree with his suggestion that we need to have a whole-of-Government approach. Currently, we have about 130,700 rack and dockless bicycle parking spaces. LTA will work with Government agencies, including Town Councils, to allow shared bicycles to be parked in all public bicycle parking areas. We are looking into increasing the number of parking places as well.

LTA will also coordinate and strengthen enforcement approaches across these various agencies against indiscriminate bicycle parking.

Last but not least, as part of the whole-of-Government approach, LTA will work with all agencies to harmonise the active mobility infrastructure to make it more convenient and seamless for users.

I have two more supplementary questions. Are there any more new entrants into the bike-sharing market that have approached LTA recently? Jurong Town Council has increased the number of yellow boxes for shared bicycles to park but we still face indiscriminate parking. Will the Ministry of Transport consider imposing a rule for the three companies to implement policies to encourage proper parking first, before LTA allows them to expand at such a great speed?

Mdm Speaker, there are currently no new entrants of bike-sharing operators. We do foresee that there may be a potential for new entrants in the future. We are also working with the bike-sharing operators to encourage them to come up with some form of incentive and penalty system so that they can modify or mould the behaviour of users, so that indiscriminate parking will be discouraged, just as the Member had mentioned, in his Town Council.