Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) has laid down the rules on Melbourne’s controversial oBikes, giving the company clear deadlines for removing the yellow rental bikes when they are dumped or damaged, and empowering the City of Melbourne to issue fines if they don’t.

Members of the public can report abandoned oBikes to the company’s hotline for collection, but if the City of Melbourne finds bikes that are broken, dumped, cluttering public places or blocking traffic, it can give the company notice to remove them, with time limits depending on the circumstances, and oBikes causing a hazard must be removed within two hours.

The rules are a result of EPA’s ongoing engagement with Councils and the operator, as well as an investigation that revealed oBikes found in trees, broken or damaged by vandals, used for makeshift public art, and more than one hundred of them fished out of the Yarra River.

The rules are a result of EPA’s ongoing engagement with Councils and the operator, as well as an investigation that revealed oBikes found in trees, broken or damaged by vandals, used for makeshift public art, and more than one hundred of them fished out of the Yarra River.