Starting November 1, fewer shared bicycles will be available to the riding public as operators will downsize the numbers of deployable bicycle units in Singapore, as shared in a report by Yahoo News Singapore.
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A total of six bike-sharing companies were issued their licenses, and will be allowed to deploy up to 40,500 bicycles in Singapore as per the Land Transport Authority (LTA). This number, however, is less than half of the estimated number of more than 100,000 shared bike units before the licensing regime was introduced earlier this year.
LTA Licensing to cut down Number of Shared Bicycles in SG
Three operators have been granted full licenses – Mobike, Ofo, and SG Bikes. This means that they will be required to pay SGD 60 for every bicycle to be deployed for operation, SGD 30 of which is the annual license fee and the other SGD 30 is for the 2-year refundable security deposit.
Meanwhile, the other three operators – Anywheel, Grab Cycle, and Qiqi Zhixiang were issued “sandbox licenses” which limits them to acquiring a smaller number of bikes for their business operation. With that said, firms with this kind of license will only have to pay SGD 12 for each bike unit annually without any additional security bond.
Grab and Anywheel will each have 1,000 bike units whereas Qiqi Zhixiang will have 500 units. Full licenses are renewable after two years whereas sandbox licenses will have to be renewed on a yearly basis.
According to the new licensing regime, “all licensees will be required to reduce the number of their bike units by Nov. 1,” explained the LTA. Moreover, the department will regularly review the number of operational bikes being deployed in Singapore, taking into consideration the demand as well as the performance of operators.