Bike sharing: prosperity or madness? In just one year, the expansion of shared bicycles has changed the short-distance travel patterns of Chinese urban residents, but various regulatory and environmental issues have also followed. From Beijing to Lhasa, shared bicycles have entered nearly 100 cities in China. These colorful shared bicycles are equipped with a GPS positioning system. You can unlock and ride away by scanning the QR code on the bicycle with a smartphone. Some of them can even be booked using your mobile phone. Zhu Dajian, director of the sustainable development and new urbanization think tank at Tongji University, told chinadialogue that the Chinese government’s 10-year initiative to promote public bicycles has not achieved significant results. This round of shared bicycles, led entirely by private capital, only took a short time. It took just one year to achieve results, reducing the use of cars and reducing traffic congestion. China is expected to explore a new transportation model for the world. However, due to the rapid expansion of capital, the number and scale of shared bicycles has exploded within one year, which has caused a series of problems such as excessive investment, random parking, disorderly occupation of urban public space, and environmental pollution in the production process. suddenly appeared. Shared bicycles that can be freely accessed and parked are causing trouble for urban management. Professor Wu Weiqiang of Zhejiang University of Technology pointed out in a study that at the current development speed of the four shared bicycle companies in Hangzhou, the number of shared bicycles in Hangzhou will reach nearly 330,000 by the end of this year. In addition to the tens of thousands of public bicycles previously invested by the government, Hangzhou’s permanent population of 9 million will be oversaturated with bicycles by the end of this year. In Beijing, according to CCTV, there are currently more than 20 shared bicycle brands competing here, with a scale of nearly one million units. Zhou Zhengyu, director of the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission, said at the Beijing Bicycle Day event in April that there are currently 700,000 shared bicycles in Beijing. It is unclear whether this is a surplus for Beijing, which has a permanent population of more than 20 million, because there is currently no authoritative statistics on the usage rate of shared bicycles. Beijing Youth Daily reported that Xicheng District in Beijing has banned the parking of shared bicycles on 10 streets in the district. Nie Riming, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Finance and Law, believes that the emergence of shared bicycles in China is largely caused by the failure of urban planning and transportation planning. "Government-led public transportation cannot meet the demand, which is why shared bicycles became popular. The market has filled the gap. The government's first thought should be to improve the environment, and should not only see their negative impacts such as random parking and too many bicycles. "Coupled with the lack of standards for the launch of shared bicycles and the lack of thresholds for launch companies, the current disorderly development of shared bicycles has led to the rapid development of shared bicycles, and government departments will definitely need time to respond. It is necessary to carry out relevant research and countermeasures, but I believe that the experience accumulated by the Ministry of Transport through the policy formulation process of online ride-hailing can be more effectively applied in the management of shared bicycles.” At the same time, he also believes that the right of way is determined by Citizens have fought for it. When more and more people use shared bicycles, the urban traffic management model dominated by cars will inevitably change. Zhu Dajian told chinadialogue: “Behind the colorful and over-developed shared bicycle industry is excessive competition for capital.” It is reported that ofo and Mobike have each received eight rounds of financing, amounting to more than 3 billion yuan. In order to capture market share, crazy expansion has become the choice of shared bicycle companies. In April, Mobike announced that it has launched a total of more than 3.65 million units, with a daily production capacity of more than 100,000 units, accounting for 45% of the global daily bicycle production capacity. Ofo said its total launch volume will reach 10 million units by the end of this year. Cycling is a zero-emission mode of travel. However, the surge in bicycle production caused by shared bicycles has drawn attention to environmental issues during the production process. An investigation by the environmental organization Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) found that some shared bicycle manufacturers, such as Fujitec, had difficulty taking into account environmental issues because they received large orders from ofo and their production lines were operating at full capacity. Some projects failed to update exhaust gas treatment facilities in a timely manner, or even failed to Handle environmental protection acceptance procedures. Fujitec is one of the pillar companies in Tianjin's bicycle manufacturing industry. Mobike's magnesium alloy wheel manufacturer also has a poor pollution record, such as directly emitting dust and gases containing toxic substances into the atmosphere. Ding Shanshan, IPE’s green supply chain project manager, told chinadialogue that during their investigation, they found that suppliers had irregularities in the production process such as construction before approval. “This is mainly because shared bicycle companies are eager to expand the market and the demand is very high. For example, if there are many vehicles to be put into a certain city in a week, the manufacturer needs to work overtime to expand the production line, and there is no time to install environmental protection facilities or conduct environmental impact assessments. " According to a staff member of Feige, a well-known domestic bicycle brand, with the order of shared bicycles, During the usual annual production off-season, the company's production lines have never been able to stop. They have also deployed additional manpower and expanded production capacity. The monthly output has increased sharply from 100,000 units to 400,000 units. On May 10 and 26, IPE sent emails to the two shared bicycle brands respectively, reminding them to pay attention to the environmental load of the bicycle production process, urging problematic suppliers to make rectifications, changes and public explanations, and establish a supplier environmental management system. Ding Shanshan said that so far, Ofo and Mobike have not made any reply. Greenpeace's investigation also found that in order to save costs, ofo used disposable batteries for "smart locks", which would cause damage to the environment. The Chinese government has publicly stated its positive attitude towards shared bicycles. A shared bicycle management method that the Ministry of Transport is publicly soliciting opinions clearly states that it is necessary to encourage the development of Internet bicycle rentals, improve their service standards, and allow shared bicycles to optimize urban transportation and reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector. However, it is still unclear how to regulate it specifically. Zhu Dajian believes that the problems exposed by shared bicycles cannot be solved by enterprises themselves, and require cooperation among the government, enterprises and consumers. He believes that the emergence of shared bicycles in China has created a new urban public bicycle model: the public bicycles that originated in Europe were equipped with parking piles, and now the shared bicycles appearing in China are not only dockless and intelligent, but also market-leading. A new model for providing public services. But he also pointed out that the current scale of shared bicycles in major Chinese cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen is close to saturation, and the next focus should be to control the number and increase the bicycle sharing rate. Zhu Dajian said frankly that shared bicycles are a new thing and the government needs new governance thinking. However, if it can develop healthily and replace the car-dominated urban transportation mode, shared bicycles will be China's contribution to the world. China's bike-sharing companies are ready to enter the international market. Ofo has more than 30 million users in China, Singapore and the United States. Mobike said it has entered more than 50 cities at home and abroad and plans to cover 100 cities around the world this year. Source: Chinadialogue (2017-06-09) (PIDC compilation)
