With our ever more environmentally conscious world, both in China and abroad, their has been increased discussion about the role of bikes for urban transportation. While cities like New York, Washington DC, Paris, and Hangzhou all using large bike stations run by the government to distribute bikes, Shanghai has taken a different approach. In Shanghai, bike-sharing is private and controlled of four competing companies. Bikes are deposited not in hubs but anywhere where the previous user leaves them. This means that there will always be enough bikes, since busy areas who need more bikes get more people leaving bikes there. Furthermore, this saves space that is often at a high premium in cities like Shanghai. In order to use a company's bikes, all you need to do is download an app, make an account, and pay the deposit. Like all bike-sharing systems, their is a fee for the usage of the bikes, but the fee is very low. Other than the usual problems with bike-sharing systems (like bike theft and damage) the biggest issue with the Shanghai model is that sometimes bikes get left where they shouldn't be since the user doesn't have any incentive to put the bike in a place where it would cause problems. China Daily reported on March 3, 2017 that the Shanghai Police seized 4,000 illegally parked bikes (mainly Mobikes). The cost for the return of the bikes, along with paying to repair any damage caused by the police, has to be eaten by the bike-sharing company alone. Though, it seems like the Chinese will park bikes almost anywhere so I don't believe this problem is exclusive to bike-sharing. It seems as though a similar system to Shanghai's could be set up in other major urban areas, potentially saving municipalities money by passing the costs of running a bike-share program off to private companies while still reaping the benefits of such a system.
2 Comments
Dad
3/13/2017 09:55:58 am
How do the companies prevent someone who is not a paid member from just taking a bike?
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3/13/2017 05:13:53 pm
I believe that you get charged until you lock the bike back up. All the bikes have a built in lock in the back. I guess you could just cut the lock off and steal the bike that way, but that problem is not exclusive to bike-shares.
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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