THERE are now more than 1 million shared-bikes in Shanghai, with 13 million registered users — and that is causing problems on urban management and consumer rights protection, an official said yesterday.

The boom in renting bicycles has brought complaints about vandalism, rider violations and parking, said Guo Jianrong, secretary general with the Shanghai Bicycle Industry Association.

Many bikes are found cluttering up pedestrian walkways and parked in lanes set aside for cycling, he added.

Furthermore, cyclists themselves often find it difficult to withdraw the prepaid money in their accounts, Guo told senior lawmakers with the Shanghai People’s Congress, the city’s legislative body.

He was speaking at a public hearing looking at the enforcement of the city’s consumer rights protection regulation.

The total deposit from renting bike users has topped 3 billion yuan (US$440 million) — and that should be under strict supervision of the government, Guo said. The industry leader Mobike, for instance, had over 6 million registered users in Shanghai with 1.8 billion yuan on deposit, he added.

“If any of the bike-sharing companies go bankrupt, a large number of consumers will be unable to recover the deposit money,” Guo told legislators.

There are at least eight bike-renting companies operating in Shanghai and the number of shared bikes in the city in April was some 600,000 with 7.7 million registered users.

Since then the numbers have increased dramatically and beyond the expectations of the association, Guo said.

“The venture capital investors offered strong financial assistance to the emerging bike-sharing companies to let them produce a large number of bikes in a short period and expand rapidly,” he said.

To help resolve the problems, the city government along with the association has made three sets of standards on the bike sharing service and the bikes’ quality. Safety requirements include: users being from 1.45 to 1.95 meters tall; a shared bike being scrapped after three years of use; and bike sharing hot lines available day and night.

Moreover, the service standard has stipulated local bike-sharing companies must return the deposit and prepaid fees to consumers within seven days with no excuse if asked to do so, Guo said.