15,000 reports of illegal shared bike parking from January to July; 4,800 repeat offenders banned

SINGAPORE – About 15,000 complaints were made in the first seven months of 2026 involving shared bicycles parked indiscriminately outside designated parking areas.

Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow, in a written parliamentary reply on Sept 8, said operators levied a $5 charge in 148,000 cases, and banned about 4,800 repeat offenders in the same period.

The authorities received about 12,000 complaints on errant parking involving shared bicycles in 2025, and the $5 penalty was meted out to about 90,000 cases. About 4,800 repeat offenders were banned the same year.

Repeat offenders are those who park shared bikes indiscriminately three or more times in a calendar year.

Siow said the increase in penalties and bans were due to the growth in shared bicycle usage as well as tighter enforcement.

He added that about 95 per cent of shared bike trips ended at designated parking areas from January 2025 to July 2026. The absolute number of total shared bike trips was not provided.

Siow was replying to a question from Nee Soon GRC MP Lee Hui Ying on complaints and fines for indiscriminate parking of shared bikes.

In response to queries from The Straits Times, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said errant parking of shared bikes is more common near MRT stations, bus interchanges and other transport nodes with high traffic.

These are locations where cycling activity and parking demand are concentrated, it added.

Such occurrences are generally transient in nature and vary depending on commuter activity and travel patterns, said the authority.

Frequent bicycle-sharing users told ST that it has become more common to encounter shared bikes being parked illegally.

Musician Afiq Syazani, 38, said he observes more improperly parked shared bikes along popular cycling routes in the Bukit Batok area, where parking spots are constantly fully occupied.

Chalking this up to insufficient parking zones in some areas, Afiq said city planners may not understand how users plan their cycling routes, which is why some cyclists opt to park illegally in spots that are nearer or more convenient for them.

In popular areas with heavy cycling traffic, he said LTA could create more parking zones to accommodate user demand, and for operators to pay more attention to these areas and redistribute bicycles more often.

Assistant environmental executive Mike Chua, 33, said he often encounters over-crowded parking zones near HDB blocks in the evenings after 7pm, when residents who use bikes to commute between nearby transport nodes have come home.

He said it was unclear if such bikes were illegally parked because they were left close to the demarcated yellow bicycle parking boxes, but not quite inside the lines.

The high number of bikes meant some ended up being sprawled across footpaths and spaces pedestrians use to walk through an area.

Chua said he often had to walk on the grass patch and go around an overcrowded shared-bike parking area near Block 681 Tessensohn Road, near Farrer Park.

Bike-sharing operator HelloRide said the capacity of each parking zone is determined based on physical site constraints, expected demand and operational considerations.

Planning for parking infrastructure is done together with LTA, and takes into account factors such as historical trip demand and ridership patterns, available space and pedestrian accessibility, as well as safety considerations, it added.

This is a continuous process, added HelloRide, as travel patterns evolve and operators continue to review the suitability of existing parking locations and identify new parking spaces where appropriate.

When a parking zone becomes crowded, HelloRide said its operations team will assess the situation and relocate bicycles to nearby available parking locations. It also carries out regular patrols across the island to redistribute bikes if necessary.

As for enforcement, the operator said every user account requires a unique mobile phone number that is verified using a one-time password.

Users can create more than one account if multiple phone numbers are used, but given the effort required, and the chance of penalties and account bans, it is an impractical and unsustainable way to avoid being banned.

Bike-sharing operator Anywheel has been contacted for comment.

LTA said it will continue working with operators to clear improperly parked or excess bicycles regularly. It added that operators who do not comply with licence conditions can face financial penalties, reductions in fleet size or licence suspension, among other things.