Lime bikes need technical repair in London

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Hatem Ghandour does not work for Goldman Sachs, but he is one of the most important people in the bank’s office in London. He’s one of the street marshals hired by Lime to remove the array of bright green e-bikes in the area around Shoe Lane during the morning rush.

“Goldman people come in and say how they want it done,” Ghandour said last week as he put Lime e-bikes back in order, arranging them neatly in a single row, back to front. He has a steady job monitoring seven e-bike parking spaces across the region which is home to companies including Goldman and Deloitte.

“I arranged this 15 minutes ago, and they’re already spreading out,” Ghandour said as we stood next to a bay filled with Lime and Forest e-bikes. But that is nothing compared to the chaos that occurred last month when Londoners are starting to use e-bikes During the metro strike. He enjoys his job but that week “was terrible. I didn’t think we could cope.”

Ghandour has worked for Lime for four months and is one of 100 new members of the “parking patrol” the company has appointed in London this year to deal with the side effects of success. The rapid growth of Lime and its competitors, including Forest, has turned the city into one of the world’s biggest experiments in whether dockless e-bikes can coexist with cars, public transit and pedestrians.

Cycling has been encouraged by London’s investment in cycle lanes and low-traffic neighbourhoods, as well as its size and flatness. Some use rental e-bikes for “first and last mile” subway rides, while others travel within regions. “Many cities are linear, but London has many different patterns,” said Hal Stevenson, Lyme policy director for the UK and Ireland.

This has attracted operators from UK startup Forrest to Sweden’s Voi and Estonia’s Bolt, while Transport for London has an established fleet of bikes and e-bikes sponsored by Santander. Lime is now the largest e-bike operator in London: it is estimated to have between 25,000 and 30,000 vehicles there, compared to Forest’s 20,000, but it does not provide a figure.

London is vital to Lime as one of its largest and fastest growing operations among the 280 cities in which it operates. Lime’s UK sales (including five other British cities such as Manchester) rose 75 per cent to £111m last year, equivalent to a fifth of its total net revenue of $686m. The company is preparing for a public listing next year at a potential valuation of $500 million.

Its competitors accuse it of putting expansion before efficiency. “They are going as fast as they can to show good numbers (for listing). We would prefer fewer bikes and more trips per bike,” says Agustín Gelissaste, founder and CEO of Forest. Lime insists that size encourages usage: If people can find an e-bike reliably close by, they’ll be inclined to ride it more.

There is a race among e-bike operators for control of areas in London’s 32 boroughs, which now tend to license one or two each in exchange for a share of revenue and pledges on operating standards. This has encouraged the prospect of the Mayor of London gaining city-wide e-bike licensing powers, with the largest ones having the best odds.

Lime is big: it designs its own e-bikes, and they are assembled in Europe in Lisbon and Rotterdam, with software developed in the United States. Its UK operations last year paid a £50m “resale fee” to the parent company for this backup. “Lime is the only player with global reach and scale. We have more resources to better serve our riders,” Lime CEO Wayne Ting told me.

But scale brings responsibility. The daily flow of cyclists into the city includes many e-bike riders crossing red lights, and there have been a rash of Lyme infections, according to Report from London Centric. Tensions with councils over streets crowded with e-bikes led to the unveiling this year of a £20m “action plan” to pay for car parking, collect or move 4,000 bikes a day, and persuade commuters to behave better.

Lime has made progress, such as using AI scanning built into its app to ensure riders park safely. But its technology could certainly do more to reduce violations such as passengers ignoring red lights, or leaving their bikes upside down in the streets. They must demonstrate that global scale brings tangible benefits to the cities in which they operate, not just financial efficiency.

Ghandour has a personal mission to address the implications of Lime’s growth around Goldman Sachs and the City of London. And with thousands of e-bikes spread across the capital, they will need a bigger treatment.

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