(Yicai Global) April 3 -- Chinese dockless bicycle rental platform Mobike run by Beijing Mobike Technology released new penalty rules on its app on April 1 to reduce damage to its fleet, which target violations such as keeping bikes as private property, vandalizing them or using them in other ways that breaks its rules or the law.

The Beijing-based company will warn violators and freeze their accounts for a set time and take legal action if users break the law.

Violations include adding a private lock, destroying bikes or keeping them as private property, posting or spray-painting advertisements, damaging or covering their quick response codes, lending accounts or unlocked bikes to others, parking outside operating areas or in building stairwells or corridors, residential quarters, garages and other non-parking areas, per the rules. 

These infractions are clearly a thorn in the side of a sector that has exploded out of nowhere in recent years and just as quickly contracted as most of the plethora of operators who jumped aboard at the start have now fallen by the way, leaving a few hardy survivors -- Mobike most prominently -- still rolling.

The company simply admonished users riding bikes outside a specified range or parking in undesignated areas with a fine warning in the past.

Bikes are the firm's most important assets and it has always devoted itself to protecting them, it said.

The ride-sharer launched a protective operation this year to reduce damage to its stable by educating users and freezing accounts and has been working with police to combat bike vandalism in various areas to warn lawbreakers. Many suspects have been captured.

Mobike agents found that more than 200 bikes had been transported from Zhejiang province to Lianyungang, Jiangsu province early this year and reported this to police. Zhejiang police arrested a suspect, a waste recycler surnamed Jiang, charging him with larceny. That case is still under investigation.

Many bikes turned up burned in a village under the jurisdiction of the southwestern megacity of Chengdu on March 3. Three were Mobikes. The Chengdu police detained a suspect surnamed Wu for arson in that case.

Editor: Ben Armour