Everyone must help steer bike sharing trend in positive direction
- By Zhang Ningning
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, January 19, 2017
My 55-year-old mother has begun to cycle again, after her last bike was stolen 10 years ago. But this time, rather than purchasing a bike of her own, she rents a shared one. An app provided by bike rental operator Mobike has become one of the most frequently used apps on her phone, along with WeChat and Taobao.
Shared bikes are an undeniable hit in Shanghai.
Commuters often hire such bikes to cover short-distance trips, while many young people often take them for tours around the city. Middle-aged and older people, who are usually not thought of as being tech-savvy, are also warming to the new bike-sharing services.
The spread of shared bikes is making it easier to live a green lifestyle, although issues like illegal parking, traffic violations and inconsistent bike lanes are also starting to rear their heads.
It's little wonder that shared bikes have become a topic at the city's ongoing legislative and political consultative conferences. At least four proposals have been submitted calling for regulations to better manage the booming bike rental business.
You Minjian, a policy adviser, has suggested that sensors around white parking lines be set up as electronic fences to curb illegal parking by bike riders. According to You's suggestion, riders who fail to park inside the parking lines can be spotted and charged additional fees. The proposal was made after an investigation with Mobike and ofo, two dominant players in the city's shared bike market. In response to policy advisers' concerns, the city's transportation commission said that local authorities have already studied draft regulations on shared bikes.
Quite a scene
It's hard to believe that it's taken only nine months for the colorful shared bikes to become a ubiquitous part of life in Shanghai.
Since orange-silver branded Mobike launched in Shanghai in April last year, rivals — including the yellow ofo, blue Xiaoming and green U-bicycle — have also joined the market. Late last year, the Shanghai Bike Industry Association estimated that the city would have 500,000 shared bikes by the end of the first half of 2017, double the number it estimated for the end of 2016.
Shanghai was once a city on bikes. However, over the past two decades, the number of bikes on local roads has declined sharply, so has space for non-motorized transportation. By the end of 2015, there were more than 4.3 million motor vehicles in use across the city.
With traffic congestion and air pollution increasing over recent years, the urban authority has focused on developing green, non-motorized transportation — including buses, new metro lines, cycling and walking. The Shanghai 2040 Master Plan sets a goal to have green transportation account for more than 85 percent of the city's transport system.
However, after years of urban development centered on the use of cars and motorized vehicles, the city is no longer as suited to the two-wheeled transportation as it used to be, both in terms of space and regulations.
The local government has had plans to promote non-motorized transportation since at least 2005, but "the result is not satisfactory", according to Chen Xiaohong, a professor with the College of Transportation Engineering at Tongji University.
More than once, I've had to get off and walk my Mobike during a pleasant ride downtown when the non-motorized lane suddenly stopped. And while I find illegal parking an eyesore, it's also true that sometimes there are just no "legal" spaces near one's final destination.
Just a few days ago, the media revealed one downside of shared cycling, showing hundreds of bikes chained and piled up in a parking lot near Shanghai Railway Station after local authorities found them parked illegally.
The emergence of shared bikes is certainly adding new momentum to the push to build up Shanghai's green transportation system. But the sky-rocketing number of bikes is not enough. Ren Yuan, a social policy professor with Fudan University, said innovation is not only about technology. It also needs external support. "In the case of Mobike, the external supports are regulations, including regulations on parking, and on balanced rights to the road among pedestrians, bikes and cars."
Grass-root action
But many grass-root authorities, even individual volunteers, have already worked in their own ways to take advantage of the new transport services, and at the same time prevent them from becoming a nuisance.
Caohejin Hi-tech Park in Xuhui District employs more than 200,000 whitecollar workers. For most of the park's commuters, getting to work from the Metro has long been an issue. Last October, the district made a strategic partnership with Mobike, encouraging the operator to introduce more bikes to the hi-tech park, and in the meantime set up more parking spots near Metro stations and major buildings.
Mobike also shares transportation data with the Xuhui district government, who work with Microsoft to analyze local residents' transportation needs and how to use the shared bikes more effectively in the district. Yangpu District has worked with Mobike and ofo to make videos calling for residents to ride safely and park legally. The videos are broadcast on a building at the busiest intersection in Wujiaochang area, one of the city's major subcenters.
A frequent Mobike user, Zhuang Ji, even initiated a volunteer group, the members of which call themselves "hunters" and report instances of illegal parking. Such involvement from society is necessary, but bike-sharing scheme operators should also take more social responsibility.
"The bike-sharing business is booming so fast," said Liu Xudong, director with Yangpu's Traffic Management Center. "But if the companies want to win in the following competition, they need to lean more toward public interests. They need to put more resources, both technically and financially, to solve the public issues they have raised."
This in some way reminds me of the online car-hailing service, the last Internet hit in Shanghai. Also supported by big money, the car-hailing service providers also expanded rapidly to gain market share.
Internet-based bike sharing services are just emerging in China. For both urban authorities and service providers, there are still many questions to be answered and explored. For example, how many shared bikes can the city handle? Should the government set a cap on the number of shared bikes or let the market decide? And how can a better cycling environment be possible downtown, where road space is limited?
Bike sharing is quickly gaining speed, and the city will have to grab the trend by the handle bars.
