All six shared bicycle operators in Singapore have paid for their licences and are currently downsizing their fleets.

The downsizing is to meet requirements under the Land Transport Authority's (LTA) regulatory framework. They have to do so by Nov. 1.

To recap, there are full licensees and sandbox licensees.

Sandbox licences are given to applicants that have little or no experience in operating shared bicycles.

This lowers the barriers of entry for new potential operators.

Here is a list of the various operators and the maximum fleet sizes they were initially allocated by LTA.

1. Mobike (25,000)
2. ofo (25,000)
3. SG Bike (3,000)
4. Anywheel (1,000)
5. Grabcycle, and (1,000)
6. Qiqi Zhixiang (500)

The first three are full licensees and the last three are sandbox licensees.

ofo reduces fleet size by 60%

ofo had requested for its maximum fleet size to be reduced to 10,000 -- a drop of 60 percent.

According to LTA, ofo said that it has difficulties in meeting the financial obligations to maintain a fleet of 25,000.

Full licensees such as ofo need to pay S$60 per bicycle to LTA.

Out of that S$60, S$30 covers the annual licence fee, while the remaining S$30 is a two-year refundable security deposit.

Sandbox licensees only need to pay S$12 per bicycle annually in licensing fee.

According to Today, ofo would have to fork out S$1.5 million annually if it were to maintain a fleet size of 25,000.

Cutting the fleet to 10,000 will cost it S$600,000 annually.

After ofo's decision to cut their maximum fleet size, the maximum allowable number of shared bicycles in Singapore by Nov. 1 will be 40,500.

Before the enforcement of the new shared bicycle regulations, LTA had mentioned that, at one point, there were about 100,000 bicycles in Singapore and only about half -- 50,000 -- were being used at any one time.

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Top image by Joshua Lee.