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Dockless bike-share scheme oBike lands in London

Promises to add hundreds more bikes a day throughout the month

A dockless rival to Santander Cycles has launched in London. Promoting its bikes as cheaper, lighter and more convenient than Boris Bikes, Singapore firm oBike has initially deployed 400 bikes in Tower Hamlets with the promise of many more to come.

"It's super multicultural, there's a lot of cycle highways, so the commute from home to work or meeting to meeting is easy, but we felt there was a lack of bicycles available in the area," oBike’s Augustin Mallon told Wired.

As with other dockless schemes like Ofo in Cambridge and MoBike in Manchester, bikes are located, unlocked and hired via an app with each 30-minute ride costing 50p (once you’ve paid a refundable deposit of £49).

While there are 11,500 Boris Bikes dotted about the capital, each must be returned to a docking stations at the end of a ride and this is the main area where oBike feels it has an advantage as its bikes can be left at the user’s destination.

They’re ambitious too.

"Santander has 11,000 bikes on the streets and we're hoping to add to that by at least 50 per cent," said Mallon. He says that during July the firm will be putting "hundreds of bikes every day" onto the streets of the capital.

While hugely popular in China in particular, it remains to be seen how British cities will take to dockless hire bikes.

Earlier today we reported on incidents of vandalism in Manchester, where several MoBikes have had locks removed or ended up in canals. However, the firm says there have only been a tiny number of issues set against broader success in which it has seen nine to 10 rides per bike per day.

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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6 comments

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brooksby | 7 years ago
2 likes

Yobikes, Mobikes, Obikes... Someone really needs to think of some better names for these schemes.

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Dnnnnnn replied to brooksby | 7 years ago
3 likes
brooksby wrote:

Yobikes, Mobikes, Obikes... Someone really needs to think of some better names for these schemes.

Coming soon, Nobikes...?

Avatar
kil0ran | 7 years ago
1 like

Great but where will they be stored? In the pic above they're seriously restricting the available pavement space, which is already at a premium in London. Not great for pushchairs/wheelchairs etc.

And where will all the delivery vans park if they can't park on the pavement?  3

Avatar
brooksby replied to kil0ran | 7 years ago
0 likes
kil0ran wrote:

Great but where will they be stored? In the pic above they're seriously restricting the available pavement space, which is already at a premium in London. Not great for pushchairs/wheelchairs etc.

And where will all the delivery vans park if they can't park on the pavement?  3

People using the dockless Yobikes in Bristol are instructed to park them against normal Sheffield stands so that they don't block the footpath (cos central Bristol has *so* many bike stands that you never ever find yourself wandering around trying to find a parking spot...)

Avatar
Redvee replied to brooksby | 7 years ago
1 like
brooksby wrote:

People using the dockless Yobikes in Bristol are instructed to park them against normal Sheffield stands.

 

If you don't leave the bike on the exact GPS coordinates of the stand you get a warning on your phone. My last YoBike was left alongside a stand beside another YoBike and I still had a warning flash up cause it was 30 cms away from the GPS location.

There are parts of Bristol you can't leave the bikes  too, basiclally they've adopted the black cab mantra of not going south of the river.

Avatar
Ush | 7 years ago
1 like

I wish they'd put child seats on these.

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