Last Saturday, the Hong Kong-based bike-sharing service Gobee announced they were taking their toys out of France and going home after their dockless bikes were decimated.
Gobee has around 150k users across the country, with 2k bikes in Paris alone, and claims 3,400 of their bikes have been damaged and more than 1,000 have been stolen.
“Dockless” bike-sharing: the ever-growing nightmare
While the concept of abandoning bike docks has blown up over the last few years, it has turned to a logistical nightmare for almost every bike-sharing company brave enough to tackle it — and it has caused a major dumping issue.
The Singapore-founded oBike reported pulling 42 of their dockless bikes Google also has major issues with citizens dumping their campus bikes in from Melbourne’s Yarra River in a single day last year.
Mountain View, CA, leading them to hire a team of part-time bike-tracking mercenaries to bring back what is rightfully theirs.
Ya try to do something nice…
Dockless bikes were created to make things easier for riders, but as most companies are finding out, it’s just giving thieves and vandals free bikes to have their way with.
In the past month, Gobee also has retreated in Belgium and Italy as their fleet continues to be the “new entertainment of underaged individuals.”