Mystery Over Missing Mobikes in Chiswick
Shared bikes largely disappear from the area but no official word on future
Shared bikes used to proliferate in Chiswick
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Users of the shared bicycle schemes in the Chiswick area are finding that bikes have become increasingly difficult to find.
Orange Mobikes and green Lime bikes used to be a common sight and the former were still seen around W4 last week but riders were reporting that the number of bikes seemed to be declining.
In the last few days the app is showing hardly any bikes available in Chiswick and members of the scheme tell us that when they go to the location shown they can’t find the bike. It has been suggested to us that those bikes still showing on the system were inaccessible to the company when they collected their stock.
No announcement has been made by Mobike about the withdrawal of the service and no posts have been made on their UK company Twitter account for over a year. They did not respond to our request for an update.
Lime, which operates in 30 countries has withdrawn their electric bikes and scooters from over half of them including the UK. The company said it was “winding down or pausing” services before the current lockdown.
In Chinese cities shared bike use reportedly increased during the coronavirus outbreak and local government health officials recommended them as a relatively safe form of public transport but many users have become concerned about an infected person using the bike before they do.
Shared bike schemes took off in London in 2018 with a number of companies entering the market, some without the agreement of the local authorities. At the peak there were over 5,000 hire bikes available in the capital not including those from TfL’s Santander scheme. By January 2019 this number had more than halved with some operators like Ofo going out of business. Mobike continued up until the start of the pandemic but had contracted its operation area in west London to include mainly Chiswick, Acton and Hammersmith.
The scheme had a significant number of users and, before the coronavirus outbreak, the bikes were a regularly seen on local roads. Some residents regarded them as a nuisance as they claimed that the lack of requirement to use a docking station meant that they were often carelessly left causing an obstruction on the pavement.
Hounslow Council held a consultation about the issue last year and TfL were intending to introduce a bylaw this summer to allow greater regulation of dockless bike operators across London.
We asked the council for an update on Mobikes but we did not receive a response.
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April 19, 2020
