You may soon be able to share bicycles with Ofo coming to India

Ofo, a station-free bike sharing platform, may soon be launching its services in India in association with Paytm.

Founder of One97 Communications, the owner of Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma hinted this development on Twitter with a hashtag ‘Monday’.

#Monday pic.twitter.com/2VCXk7vo25

— Vijay Shekhar (@vijayshekhar) January 12, 2018

The company plans to expand to Pune, Chennai, Indore, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru in India, a report by Live Mint said.

“We are delighted to partner with the city of Pune. We wish to improve its quality of life in the city by providing a healthier, quicker, and greener alternative to motor vehicles. Our mission is to solve the ‘last mile’ transportation problem in India’s urban areas and we see immense potential in Pune for Ofo’s convenient, affordable and low carbon way of travel,” Rajarshi Sahai, director of public policy and communications at Ofo, said last week.

With a mission statement of ‘mobility for all’ Ofo launched its services in Beijing, China.

“People shouldn’t have to struggle to get to work or school because of where they live. Ofo is a step towards social equality and inclusion for any city that adopts it,” the company’s website reads.

With Ofo, customers can pick up a bike, complete an entire journey and leave the bike locked when finished.

“No docking stations, no walking the rest of the way. Because that's what a bike share is supposed to be,” Ofo said.

Founded in 2014, the company has now expanded its presence to over 20 crore users in more than 20 countries: Australia, Austria, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US.

“The platform generates more than 32 million daily transactions and has provided global users in 250+ cities with over 5 billion efficient, convenient, green rides,” Ofo said.

Ofo’s bike sharing platform works in a similar fashion to cab hailing apps.

Step one is to open the Ofo app and find all the bikes around you. Once found customers will have to tap the “unlock” button and scan the QR code to automatically unlock the bike.

Once a rider has ended his or her journey they would have to simply park the bike safely and ‘legally,’ and manually lock it to automatically end the trip.

Charges on the company’s website currently reflect $3 for half an hour.

"To date, Ofo riders have reduced aggregate carbon emissions by over 13,500 tons," the company added.