TAIPEI (TVBS News) — A server malfunction crippled Taiwan's largest bike-sharing network Wednesday (Oct. 1), stranding over 20,000 users during evening rush hour. YouBike (微笑單車), the island's ubiquitous public bicycle system, experienced widespread disruptions across Taipei, New Taipei, and Taoyuan when backend server connections failed. Spokesperson Lin Yuan-yu (林苑毓) apologized Thursday (Oct. 2) for the system failure that rendered both standard and electric bicycles unavailable.
Engineers traced the malfunction to a Sept. 27 system update that triggered unexpected traffic surges, overwhelming servers during peak usage. Taipei's Department of Transportation (交通局), the city's transit authority, reported service resumed by 7:50 p.m., but stability concerns remain. The department demanded comprehensive improvement plans from YouBike and threatened contractual penalties for the disruption.
New Taipei City's Transportation Department (交通局) urged YouBike to show flexibility with users unable to return bikes normally, citing harm to public interests. Officials advised residents to seek alternative transportation during the outage. The system typically offers free 30-minute rides on standard bikes, while electric models charge NT$20 (around US$0.66) per 30-minute period for the first two hours.
Taipei City Councilor Yen Juo-fang (顏若芳) condemned the outage for worsening evening commutes. The member of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (民進黨) demanded penalties and stronger user protections, recommending YouBike provide extended free usage as compensation. Yen noted the system experienced multiple crashes last year, highlighting recurring reliability issues.