The bike-sharing movement has greatly aided transportation for the public since it started a few years ago. Its strengths are that the bicycles are readily available and rental is affordable.

Detractors of the movement may argue that the bicycles mess up the orderly physical landscape of Singapore when there is indiscriminate and irresponsible parking, which is akin to littering. However, these critics need to think that for some of the riders, these bikes have improved accessibility for them, who have to work in industrial areas where the distance to the workplace from the bus stop or MRT station could be a longer distance.

The truth is that it is the user’s behaviour that needs rectification and the proposed changes to the Parking Places Act hopefully address this.

One initiative by the authorities is to have users scan parking locations which are geo-fenced before they can end their ride.

This is a good initiative, but I hope that the Land Transport Authority and industrial property developer JTC can collaborate to increase such parking locations in industrial areas since riders using bike-sharing services are quite substantial.