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An inner-Melbourne community group is defending the world’s largest e-bike operator, claiming the company was “set up to fail” before a local council tore up its years-long deal.
City of Yarra councillors earlier this month voted against endorsing a permanent e-bike hire contract with American-headquartered hiring company Lime, rubbishing their pitch and terminating an almost six-year trial.
Councillors criticised the operator’s unwillingness to clean up dumped vehicles or punish unruly riders at a July 14 council meeting, saying Lime made millions of dollars from local trips during the trial, while the council didn’t see a cent.
Lime’s Asia-Pacific head Will Peters has since derided accusations about lacklustre penalties as “absolutely untrue” – and questioned why local governments have the power to ban e-bikes in the first place.
“This is not for a council to make a decision on willy-nilly,” Peters told this masthead.
Jeremy Lawrence, president of local active transport advocacy group Streets Alive Yarra, said excessive financial and operational requirements sought by Yarra Council in its tender specifications meant that even a major e-bike provider was “set up to fail”.
Lawrence spoke at the July 14 council meeting in favour of awarding Lime the tender.
“In my view, it was so onerous [that] no share bike operator, even if it was Lime … could make it work in a financially viable manner,” Lawrence said.
The tender asked e-bike companies to cover all council’s costs for a permanent shared e-bike scheme without specifying or estimating what those costs would be, Lawrence said, adding that it was “absurd”.
Operators were also required to relocate “dangerously placed” e-bikes within 30 minutes of a complaint, according to the tender. Faulty or otherwise inappropriately parked bikes were required to be moved within an hour.
“Even if you have a really rich, wealthy, profitable share bike operator … it’s just not realistic to scale across the municipality with those type of restrictions,” Lawrence said.
Lime took particular issue with the tender’s requirement to answer all phone calls from members of the public within 10 seconds, 24/7 – similar to NSW Ambulance performance target to answer Triple Zero calls, Peters said.
The tender threatened e-bike operators would be fined $5000 the first time they failed to answer a call in this timeframe, and then $10,000 penalties for every further breach in the same month.
Their local e-bike fleet, capped at 250, would also be cut by 20 per cent with every consecutive breach in a month.
Nick Moir
Lime asked the council to amend the tender contract before the company was knocked back.
“You could actually get a person who did not support active transport, or did not like this at all, with no reasons, calling up three times”, Peters said.
“If we did not pick up that phone call in 10 seconds, [and] you do that three times, 20 per cent of the fleet’s gone.
“No other applicant applied to this tender. I think that, in itself, says enough.”
A City of Yarra spokesperson said that the tender requirements addressed issues that were frequently brought forward by residents.
They emphasised that a permeant contract would be awarded only if it did not place a burden on the community, either financial or in terms of accessibility. Yarra sought to ensure that the program would be “cost neutral to council as a minimum”.
“Given the small overall size of Yarra … 30 minutes is appropriate for an operator that is sufficiently resourced to move a bike,” the spokesperson said.
“E-bikes obstructing footpaths and causing other hazards are not an acceptable to our community.”
Lime maintained that it punished riders effectively, using a staged process and ultimately banned those who repeatedly parked poorly.
The company was always going to agree to zero cost to council for an e-bike scheme, but instead faced the “sad” reality riders around Melbourne would be geo-fenced, Peters said.
“They’re instantly going to go through a red line that no one knew existed, which is a council LGA, because people decided they had a vendetta against e-bikes,” he said.
“We never dreamt of councils doing this for e-bikes … There has to be a statewide approach here.”
Lime was yet to receive feedback on the tender – only confirmation its e-bike trial was terminated – but wanted to keep working with council to find a solution for Yarra, Peters said.
The council, too, hasn’t ruled out a future shared e-bike scheme with another operator.
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Gemma Grant is a city reporter at The Age. Contact her securely on Signal at gemmagrant.88Connect via email.From our partners
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