We’re next if mobikes go...
MOBIKE has threatened to leave Manchester – but there’s a rival bike-sharing firm waiting in the wings to take its place.
Chinese cycling giant Mobike said on Tuesday it may abandon the city if profit-sucking levels of theft and vandalism weren’t addressed.
Mobike broke the news with the support of the council, police, and transport bosses, including cycling tsar Chris Boardman.
And for the majority it was sad news that a small minority of users could have put the scheme in jeopardy just 14 months after its launch.
But Julian Scriven, UK MD of nextbike, says if their rivals do retreat, they will happily roll their own blue-and-silver bikes into town.
And nextbike, among a number of potential bike-sharing contenders to make a move on Manchester, do have form.
The German-founded firm operates in 150 cities across 26 countries. Their nine UK bases include Glasgow, Cardiff and Milton Keynes.
They claim their vandalism levels hover at around 1 per cent of bikes a year in Glasgow – as opposed to Manchester Mobike’s 10pc a month.
Julian, who spent 10 years living in the cycling city of Amsterdam, told the M.E.N.: “I think we could do better in Manchester than Mobike.
“There’s a feeling of sincere sadness around what has happened with Mobike. The real sadness is that it could put some cities off bikeshare schemes even though in many cities they are going brilliantly.
“In Glasgow, in Cardiff, in Milton Keynes, we had some problems but we never said ‘people are beating up the bikes, we’re going to leave the city,’ We are committed to staying and making it a success.
“Nobody would say that Manchester has more anti-social behaviour than, for example, Glasgow, where we have 500 bikes. It’s very unfair to tarnish Manchester like that. We don’t see that kind of thing happening in Glasgow.”
There were teething problems in Glasgow, Julian admits, but one year on and they’re under control.
nextbike does operate some dockless systems in cities like Leipzig in Germany, but he credits using docked systems – as opposed to Mobike’s dockless set-up – in cities where it suits.
Bikes that have to be docked are returned to parking stations and the customer is charged until that point.
With the dockless model, users can unlock a bike and then return it anywhere within a ‘controlled zone’ – and sadly that has seen bikes left in canals and up lamp posts.
Docked stations, Julian argues, give boosted security and the ability to site docking stations in public view.
He added: “With dockless a lot of bikes end up where they don’t need to be. With docked systems there is physical security – a big steel bar makes them very resilient to being taken.
“You can also control exactly where the bikes are, which is a big deterrent to anti-social behaviour because you can make sure they are in plain sight with CCTV. Vandals are like rats in drains – they don’t like being seen doing their mischief.”
He said working with communities and outreach charities was key, and making people feel the scheme belonged to them.
Julian is clear that Manchester isn’t big enough for two bike share schemes. But he says they’d jump at the chance to prove Manchester and bike-sharing are compatible.
“We’d have a dialogue with Manchester city council and TfGM and various other bodies. We are all about collaboration first rather than helicoptering in. But judge us on our actions not our words. We do this day in and day out.”