A dockless e-bike firm is quitting London — and sending its bikes to Paris — saying that the capital’s bike rental market is “totally out of control”.
Dott said the failure to regulate e-bikes in a similar way to e-scooters “made no sense” and was bad for business and for people who hired the bikes.
It is removing its 2,500 machines from the streets and sending them to Paris and Rome.
Henri Moissinac, chief executive of Dott, criticised rival firms for “flooding” central London with bikes, which he admitted caused problems for pedestrians when they were left abandoned on pavements.
He told the Standard: “London is the only place where you have two modes side by side — one regulated by TfL, the e-scooters, and the other that is totally out of control, that is the e-bike.”
Instead, Dott will focus on e-scooters — it will have 1,750 for hire in the second phase of the TfL-run trial, which starts on Monday.
At present, there are no laws governing rental bikes. This has led to a “patchwork” system as some councils offer to “license” operators while requiring rivals to use “geofence” technology to prevent their bikes crossing their borough boundary.
Mr Moissinac said that when Camden council stuck a deal with Human Forest and Lime it resulted in “extremely negative feedback” from Dott cyclists as their bike’s electric motor cut out when they crossed into Camden.
“It makes no sense for the user to get stuck on some kind of virtual barrier between one borough and another... to cut the city in half like this. Almost every ride in central London would lead to a complaint...the negative impact was so big for us we had to stop.”
“We 100 per cent support TfL in running a combined scheme – both scooters and e-bikes, and the same geofence for both modes and the same rules for all operators.”
Dott is keen to increase the number of e-scooter riders but says the key issue is the number of parking bays set aside by councils and TfL.
Unlike dockless e-bikes, e-scooters are not permitted to be “free floating”, which means they are less likely to be discarded on the pavement.
The vehicles use GPS technology that requires them to be parked in a designated bay – or the “clock keeps ticking” on the cost of the ride.
But users tend only to be willing to walk several minutes to hire a scooter – and similarly want a parking bay near their destination.
Voi and Lime are also taking part in the Government-backed e-scooter trial, which has been extended until next May and operates in 10 London boroughs. Tier, which was part of the initial pilot, was not reselected by TfL after a retendering process.
