Since the bike-sharing scheme started, many problems have followed (LTA moves against badly parked bikes; June 18).

Bike-sharing firms should not be allowed to use public parking spaces for their bikes.

Bike-sharing companies are business entities which aim to make profit. If their bikes are allowed to be parked at public bike-parking spaces, it is as good as allowing them to use public spaces to make money.

Allowing these bikes to be parked in public bike-parking spaces also reduces the space available for other users to park their bikes.

Bike-sharing firms should have their own designated parking spaces. They can rent such spaces from the Land Transport Authority or Housing Board, for instance.

With such spaces, the firms can then look into charging their users based on the time the users take to return the bikes to the designated parking spaces.

Since the charging of the fees is done electronically, bike-sharing firms can easily reduce the number of illegally parked bikes by charging the errant users the amount equivalent to a parking fine.

Anna Chan (Mrs)