Categories
Bike Share

Winter Reductions for Mobike and Lime in London

Both Lime and Mobike have reduced their operating areas in London, for the winter.

Lime have removed their south London “official” area and correspondingly drawn up their unofficial “unserviced” area too. They are out of Croydon, Sutton and Bromley officially, as well as Kingston and Merton. However, south of the river, they are still in Lambeth, Wandsworth and Richmond unofficially, as well as in various North London boroughs.

Lime’s official operating area:

Lime’s implicit operating area – covering the above (white area) plus an area in grey where they don’t guarantee service – i.e. they won’t stock bikes here – but you can end your journey here without penalty:

Mobike have also announced that they are once again reducing their operating footprint, for winter, however they have not yet made the change. Mobike’s current (summer) area:

While this might look like an abandonment of areas, Mobike did do the same in late 2018 and came back in early 2019, so with luck, south London’s provision will again increase next year. However, for commuters or other regular users in south London, the removal of this option must be quite frustrating!

By way of comparison, here’s the operating footprint for the other dockless operator, JUMP:

The other operators in London (Santander Cycles x2, Freebike, Beryl, KU Bikes) are dock or hub-based.

I don’t have any up-to-date information on Bird in the Olympic Park.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *