Bike Share surely is Summer 2017’s hot topic – and not only within cycling media. Because dockless fleets can be set up in a matter of hours and – virtually – without any permission from local authorities, many have been sprouting across Europe, filling newspapers and social media with contradictory opinions. This Executive Summary will create order out of the chaos, for our valued readers.

It all started in late spring, with repeated announcements from both ofo and Mobike (Chinese start-ups backed by hundred million USD investments from venture capitalists) about an imminent landing in the UK – the former to start with 500 bicycles in Cambridge, the latter with several thousand in London. These companies’ usual modus operandi and the concern they created by deploying – literally – millions of bicycles on the streets of a handful of Chinese cities, caused a media-induced frenzy among European local governments.

Overseas, Bluegogo had to retrieve all its bicycles from the streets of San Francisco, after the city (over)reacted to its un-licensed presence with a new regulation imposing stricter rules for station-less bike share service providers.

Recently, Amsterdam decided to follow the same path: all dockless bike sharing systems will be prohibited (verboten) as of September.

In response to specific requests, ECF through PEBSS and in collaboration with UITP developed the Policy Framework for Smart Public-Use Bike Share and the Common Position Paper on Unlicensed Dockless Bike Sharing, two strategic documents designed to help cities frame a productive conversations with bike share operators, new and old, dock-based, or dock-free, and any hybrid.

Evolving fast

Post Velo-city 2017 Arnhem-Nijmegen, news have been accelerating at pace. Two Italian cities, Florence and Milan, progressively announced new tenders for multi-operator bike share environments. Both cities require dockless, un-anchored systems allowing a free-floating distribution of the bicycles. Mobike has targeted both cities – and already launched in Florence – but more operators are still looking at the possibility of complementing their service.

Mobike also launched its first official system in Europe: 1,000 bicycles in Manchester. We appreciated the different approach the company is using when dealing with European cities: good coordination and cooperation with local authorities, and a relatively small start with plans for scaling up, after the pilot study. ofo published its own sort of Code of Conduct, even though clearly a unilateral declaration of this kind is insufficient to reassure city officials: that role belongs only a neutral organisation – such as PEBSS.

A New Market

Many bike share companies providing dock-less and app-based services have been born over the last few months. Even though nextbike has been implementing hybrid fleets for years now, with bicycles capable of locking into stations as well as onto themselves, fully station-less systems are quite recent – and new ones appears on a weekly basis. There are now dozens of operators, and we are proud to confirm three of them being members of PEBSS: BitRide (powered by Zehus), Donkey Republic, and Urbo.

We are also reassured to see more awareness generated on the need for regulations globally / locally: since the release of PEBSS’ Policy Frameworks establishing guidelines for cities and operators, even the Chinese government concluded that leaving everything exclusively to the good intentions of local operators is not a viable strategy.

May we live in interesting times. That, we are, especially within the bike sharing economy.