LTA to propose new rules to tackle bike-sharing parking issues

Since May last year, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has collected about $180,000 in fines and administrative fees from bicycle sharing operators whose bikes were parked indiscriminately, Senior Minister of State for Transport Lam Pin Min told Parliament yesterday.

LTA will be proposing a new licensing framework this month to address the problem of illegal bicycle parking, said Dr Lam.

He said operators will have to adopt schemes that incentivise good parking behaviour and discourage irresponsible parking, which could involve high-accuracy geofencing - creating a virtual boundary.

More than 2,170 removal notices have been issued while 341 bicycles have been impounded from May last year to last month, revealed Dr Lam.

In response to questions from The New Paper, Mr Tim Phang, general manager of oBike Singapore, said public education was key for bike sharing to take off .

Mr Phang said oBike's geofencing feature will officially come into effect in May, and oBike will start to penalise or reward users according to their riding behaviour.

He acknowledged more work needed to be done to regulate users and added: "oBike is committed to working closely with the authorities, to educate Singaporeans on cycling etiquette and social graciousness."

Under the Street Works Act, bicycle users who obstruct others by parking indiscriminately in public can be fined up to $2,000.

In response to a supplementary question by Mr Lim Biow Chuan (Mountbatten), Dr Lam said there were challenges in enforcing this due to the difficulty in catching indiscriminate users, with none caught so far.

LTA adopts a five-pronged approach to the shared-bike parking issue.

It includes enforcement, shaping user behaviour and providing more parking lots for these bikes, with the aim of creating up to 50,000 more such spaces by 2020.

- HARIZ BAHARUDIN