LTA Refunds Bicycle-Sharing Firms $570,000 In Licensing Fees To Promote ‘Active Mobility’

Remember when there were tons of seemingly endless Ofo/oBike bikes lining the streets?

You could literally get out of the MRT station to find an entire fleet of Ofos waiting for you outside.

Well, those days are long gone. Why do you ask? For starters, indiscriminate parking became a massive problem. I even saw an Ofo bike in the longkang near my house. Not cool.

To tackle indiscriminate parking, the government introduced a licensing regime in 2018. I would say it has been successful (kind of) thus far since there are practically no more bicycle-sharing bikes around.

On top of this fee, bike-sharing companies were also forced to pay a security deposit of $30 per bicycle. So yeah, it’s pretty expensive to be a bicycle-sharing operator in Singapore.

Which is why this happened:

LTA Refunds Bicycle-Sharing Firms $570,000 In Licensing Fees To Promote ‘Active Mobility’

The gahmen is being very generous: the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has refunded more than $570,000 to bike-sharing companies to “promote active mobility”.

Of course, the companies were more than happy and welcomed the moolah with open arms.

They said that they would reinvest the cash in their operations which in turn could mean that you and me can enjoy cheaper bicycle-sharing rides.

But wait, transport experts mentioned that the lower fees might not be as low as we hoped for due to the lack of a sustainable business model for the industry.

Translated: Don’t get your hopes up.

According to LTA, the fees have been cut by 50% to $15 per bike for full licenses and $6 per bike for sandbox licences in July.

An LTA spokesman said that it “will help reduce compliance costs for operators and support bicycle-sharing as an option for active mobility”.

Bear in mind that each license lasts for only 2 years, after which it will have to be renewed.

This means that the bike-sharing companies will be getting a lot of money back, and this includes those that have already been zilch-ed from the market:

• Mobike which has already quit the market will receive a refund of $375,000 which it paid to operate 2,500 bikes.
• SG Bike who is taking over Mobike’s license can now pay less. They already had a license to operate 3,000 bikes.
• Anywheel received a refund of $150,000 to operate 10,000 bikes.
• The newest entry to the market Moov Mobility will get a refund of $6,000 for 1,000 bicycles with sandbox license.

And if you’re wondering if these changes will hold up the bicycle-sharing industry as a whole, I don’t have good news for you.

The general consensus is that many big obstacles still remain for the operators.

Professor Nitin Pangarkar, academic director of the National University of Singapore’s MBA programme, told The Straits Times, “The reduced licence fee may help a little bit, but the problem lies with the users, not the Government.”

Kind of reminds me of another similar issue…what’s it called again?

Oh. PMD. What’s PMD again?