Today the world’s leading dockless bicycle hire providers, Ofo and Mobike, have ramped up their operations, expanding fleets in 250 cities across 21 countries.

One of these cities is London, where Ofo’s yellow bikes will be released south of the river for the first time. Southwark Council has taken on 200 of the bikes, joining the 1,150 that are already in operation in the capital. This, however, is only the tip of the iceberg, with the company planning to eventually have 150,000 bikes in the capital.

Thousands of Ofo bikes await cleaning or repair in Xiangyang, China Credit: Getty

Stockport will also today receive its first load of dockless bikes, with 1,000 Mobikes being introduced in the Greater Manchester town. Cambridge, Sheffield, Oxford and Norwich have already got their own fleets of free floating bikes.

Like it or not, dockless bicycles are set to become a much more common sight in the UK and in cities around the world. But questions remain. Will they turn our cities into utopian mirror-images of Copenhagen, or are our pavements about to become unsightly bicycle scrap yards? Here’s the lowdown on dockless bikes.

Why do we need more bike hire schemes in cities?

Many cities have short-distance connectivity problems. In central London, for example, it is often quickest to walk from A to B rather than navigate the Underground network or take a bus or taxi. Cycling is even quicker, so bike hire schemes allow for a speedy and affordable way of getting around.

It’s also a way of reducing congestion and pollution in cities, and helps people to stay fit on their commutes.

Sounds great. But why do we need dockless bikes?

Unlike Santander Cycles in London (to you and I, Boris Bikes), these bikes do not need to be docked at designated points. A locking mechanism on the back wheel means they can be parked up wherever you please. Anyone who has found themselves lumbered with a Boris Bike and nowhere to park it will know that the option to park anywhere is a definite bonus.

Dockless bikes are unlocked using an app Credit: Getty

How do dockless bikes actually work?

Most dockless companies work roughly as follows: you download the relevant app, use a map to find the nearest bike and then scan the QR code on the bike using your phone. The lock pings open and you can then ride the bike wherever you need to go, park it in a “responsible spot”, and close the lock again. With Ofo, for example, a half hour journey costs 50p with a daily cap of £5.

What constitutes a “responsible” parking spot?

Matthew Sparkes from Ofo talked me through the process: "We ask that customers park so that the bike doesn't cause an obstruction. We don't want them to be blocking doorways or pavements, or on private property without permission. We can tell when a bike has been left somewhere it shouldn't as each one has a GPS tracker which constantly beams its location back to us.”

But what if someone does park irresponsibly?

Sparkes explained: “If a customer persistently parks badly then we could fine or even ban them, after sending a marshal to move the bike, but so far in the UK the vast majority of users have been really thoughtful and responsible.”

What if someone vandalises one of the bikes?

Last summer, Mobike unveiled 1,000 of their orange and silver bikes in Manchester. Reports quickly emerged that some bikes had been thrown in the canal and abandoned in bins, with some opportunists working out how to disable the GPS trackers and breaking the bikes up for parts.

Responding to this, Sparkes said: “Some amount of vandalism is inevitable, sadly, but we have seen very small numbers of bikes damaged. In the vast majority of cases these are swiftly collected by our marshals, repaired at one of our depots and returned to the wild within hours. Our large teams of marshals patrol each of our cities making sure that bikes are parked responsibly and in good working condition.”

Have dockless bikes taken off in Europe?

They have been rolled out extensively, although there have been examples of similar teething problems on the continent.

The dockless firm Gobee.bike has been forced to remove its operations in Paris after the mass destruction of its fleet. It has also been forced to remove schemes from Rome, Milan and Turin, where 60 per cent of its free-floating fleet of bikes had reportedly been vandalised, stolen or dumped in rivers.

Lisbon has also started removing their fleet of oBikes, after bicycles had been found littering town squares and benches. Town councillor for mobility Miguel Gaspar told the Publico newspaper: “Lisbon as a city is very open to these kinds of schemes, but when we start seeing bikes left in the middle of squares or on top of benches in parks, it shows that it is important this kind of activity is regulated.”

Sounds like they are a bit of a blot on the landscape...

They can be, when not parked “responsibly”. What’s more, dockless bikes have been known to topple over on windy days.

A mural made out of dockless bikes in Fitzroy, Melbourne Credit: Getty

Some people have taken matters into their own hands. An anonymous artist in Melbourne, Australia installed a bicycle rainbow out of disused oBikes. This came shortly after Melbourne city council signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with oBike, following a number of complaints that the bicycles were cluttering footpaths and had been thrown in rivers.

Is there anything to stop me cycling to John O’Groats on a dockless bike?

There is indeed. Ofo, and most other dockless firms, use “geofencing technology”, which means that cyclists cannot use the bikes outside of a designated zone - as shown on the app.

Are dockless bikes here to stay?

Today’s expansion of Ofo and Mobike marks an escalation in the battle to become the world’s leading dockless bicycle firm. Ofo has 200 million users in 250 countries, Mobike has a similar number in 180 cities, and they are funded by Chinese tech giants Tencent and Alibaba respectively - so all signs point to dockless being on the rise.

Photos released in November 2017 show over 100,000 scrapped dockless bikes in Xiamen, China Credit: Getty

That said, questions were being asked in November last year, when photographs revealed mountains of Ofo, Mobike and Bluegogo dockless bicycles in a scrapheap in Xiamen, just days after the company Bluegogo went bankrupt. And with more and more examples of cities struggling with bikes littering and obstructing public areas, time will tell just how much pedestrians and councils are willing to put up with.