Daily Lessons from Life 28 June 2018 - Good intention bad results

"LTA instructs oBike to remove bicycles by next Wednesday

SINGAPORE: The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has instructed bike-sharing firm oBike to work with its liquidator to remove its bicycles from public spaces by Jul 4, the authority announced on Thursday (Jun 28). LTA said the instruction was made so that public streets would not be cluttered with bicycles that cannot be hired. 

"Should there be unremoved oBike bicycles after this date, LTA will progressively remove these bicycles from public spaces," it said.

"oBike or its liquidator will have to pay the relevant towing and storage fees in order to claim impounded bicycles from LTA. In addition, LTA and CASE have emphasised to oBike the importance of refunding users their deposits which were placed earlier with the company," it added.  

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) released the statement after it engaged oBike on its exit plans, amid concerns that its fleet of about 14,000 bicycles is currently left abandoned on streets, pavements and parks all over the country.

In a shock move, the bike-sharing operator announced on Monday that it had stopped operations in Singapore, citing difficulties in meeting the new requirements put in place by LTA to tackle indiscriminate parking. 

CONSUMERS WILL BE UNABLE TO PURSUE LEGAL CLAIM AGAINST OBIKE: CASE"

This dockless bike sharing thingy is classic good intention yielding bad results!!

I always wonder how the biz model can make money? certainly not through the rental. Some claimed the companies used the customers' deposits to invest n make money! including underground banking, at least in China!!

When oBike closes, it leavea the following issues already seen in other countries that had this type of biz, including China:

1. unused deposits of customers never see the light as the biz just closed up with no mean to pay back!;

2. thousands of abandoned shared-bikes all over the place! The costs of cleaning up will ultimately be absorbed by the government!;

3. innovative way to resolve item 2 above will b allowing anyone to just take any abandoned bikes for their keeps!! This will save the government time, efforts n money!!

RIP oBike in Sgp!

ps: Japan made the round of 16 after losing to Poland. The only Asian team to make it!!