Bike-Sharing Company to Expand with Green Bikes After All Yellow Bikes Disappeared

Remember a time when all you saw after leaving your house was yellow?

Not this.

I’m talking about something bigger and… well, not as cute and emotional.

As established by my fellow Goody slave here, the future seems bleak for bike-sharing companies as they slowly made their exit one by one.

It’s as though Thanos’ snap resulted in a bad ending for the fleet of bicycles we once held close to our heart.

The days of conveniently hopping on an ofo bike may be long gone, but when one door closes, another opens.

It was then, the God of bicycles heard your cries and raised his right hand…

…and miraculously, a few bike-sharing companies (AnyWheel and SG Bike) pulled through despite prevailing tribulations.

Bike-sharing is not dead

Local bike-sharing companies, AnyWheel and SG Bike are determined to stay in the industry, unlike their foreign competitors.

According to Today, Singaporeans can expect to see more greens in time to come. Truly living up to our clean and green city.

Jokes aside, it was recently reported that Anywheel has plans to expand its fleet of bicycles to a total of 10,000 by the end of 2019. Similarly, SG Bike has plans to multiply as well, though no details were provided to CNA.

Expansion by area

Anywheel currently has less than 1,000 bikes island-wide with the bulk of its users residing in Punggol.

From a conversation between CNA and Anywheel’s founder-cum-CEO Htay Aung, it was evident that the bike-sharing company has plans to deploy “2,000 to 3,000 bicycles in the Central Business District in July.”

Plans to expand will only materialize in July because Anywheel only received the green light to operate 10,000 bikes from the Land Transport Authority in April. As reported by Today, the company played by the book and waited for their full license before ordering more bicycles.

Aung added that the plan was to grow its fleet “area by area – north, south, east, west”. In doing so, he hopes to “meet the demand of all the enquiries we’re having and start deploying to areas where we’re having high demand.”

Improved location-tracking capabilities

What sets Anywheel apart from the crowd is their intricate lock system which is able to give off signals, reducing the time required for the Operations team to track the bikes. Furthermore, this would minimize the occurrence of inappropriate parking – the greatest concern for the public.

According to Aung, improvements were made to the connectivity of the bikes’ locks with the help of a better SIM card reader. On top of that, the company switched their batteries to one that a more “stable battery life”, enabling them to collect more data.

In other news, it seems that Anywheel is off to a good start in 2019 with great plans to enter other regions.

As reported by Today, the company intends to bring its shared bikes and its e-scooter offering, JustScoot to Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia and Australia in August this year.

Travel around with Anywheel but don’t leave the bike Anywhere to avoid paying a relocation fee of S$5!