Rideshare giant Uber will ban users from its Uber and Uber Eats apps if they are found guilty of vandalising the company’s new e-bikes.
Jump by Uber will unleash 400 battery-powered bicycles on Melbourne next month.
The bikes will cost $1 to unlock, and 30 cents per minute to ride. They can hit speeds of 25 kilometres an hour.
Jump by Uber has signed a memorandum of understanding with the City of Melbourne, Yarra and Port Phillip Councils. Parking the bike outside those city boundaries will result in a $15 fine.
At 32 kilograms, the e-bike will be much harder to move than the oBike – which were routinely thrown in a trees and the Yarra River.
Henry Greenacre, head of Jump ANZ, promises to learn from the failure of the oBike.
“There is a responsibility on people in Melbourne to use these responsibly,” Mr Greenacre said.
“Look after them because this is a trial for us, it’s a trial for the cities and it’s a trial for Good Cycles. We all want to make this work.
“If we find people are misusing the bikes we’ll remove their access to the app. Not just Jump, but Uber Eats and Uber as well.”
Melbourne Lord Mayor, Sally Capp believes removing access to the app is a great “deterrent.”
“This is not a new opportunity for people to come up with inventive ways of how to misuse our ride-share bikes,” Ms Capp said.
Every Jump bike is digitally tracked and they will be located by GPS by the team at Good Cycles Melbourne, who are contracted to replace the bike batteries which deplete after “10 trips.”
A 24-hour hotline is being organised to help locate misplaced bikes.
Jump has agreed to find and fix any displaced bikes within two hours of being notified.
Jump operates in 30 cities worldwide and has faced vandalism issues in parts of North America and Europe.
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