With an explosion of bike sharing apps and providers, China’s bike-sharing industry is blossoming. In big cities across the country, bike sharing revolution is taking over on the streets, greatly helping ease traffic congestions and facilitating the air cleaner even though some small new problems have been occured.
In the last century, China used to be known as the “kindom of bicycles”. Even though automobile industry have been rejuvenating fast in the past decades, the growing popularity of bike-sharing apps seems to indicate that chinese people are recovering their taste for the two-wheelers taffic tool.
Mobike and ofo
Mobike and ofo are the two largest bike-sharing startups in China as of now. The two are squeezing to gain market share by attracting more investment. The boosting investment in the two fledgling bike-sharing services from the Shanghai-based Mobike which later branches out into other big cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou, and ofo which headquartered in Beijing, initially targeted at university campuses only.
User’s experience
When traveling by car or other comparatively big vehicles across the sprawling and densely populated city is really a nightmare. People will even waste more than an hour for just a few kilometers when there is any traffic congestion.
Cheng Li, a bike-share user, said he has been driving his car less and using the bike to take the metro more since he started using the service about half a year ago.
“After I get off the metro, I usually have to walk another kilometer or two, so I’ll grab a bike share and go. It’s less stressful.” Cheng said.
A group of people use bike-sharing services more frequently are people in love. Every weekend, when you observe carefully beside some wide roads or comparatively attractive scenic spots in big cities, you’ll certainly find some pairs driving mobikes or ofo bikes. It’s really a romantic scene with dynamics flavor. More amazingly, some couples even use bike sharing service as a part during their wedding ceremony! How romantic and interesting it is!
New problems
With more and more bikes appeared, some bike users without strong responsibility may stop the bikes in un-permitted places illegally. Moreover, the number of stolen and vandalized bikes is also in rise. It is the bike hunter to find out the illegally parked bikes and those bikes with severe problems.
Many people especiall the young are passionate about bike sharing and the convenience and environmental friendliness this industry brought to the city they live in. But as complaints grow, the companies are expected to do more to improve their service rather than not just producing more bikes just to force out more competitors.
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