Uber for bikes: how 'dockless' cycles flooded China – and are heading overseas
On a 30ft-wide screen in Hangzhou’s public bike share office, the counter ticks up relentlessly: 278,812 … 278,847 … 278,883 … Another 40 cycle rentals every couple of seconds. The system will easily top 350,000 before this bitterly cold winter day is out.
On the left of the giant screen, the world’s 15 biggest public bike shares are ranked. Thirteen of them are in
China. (Paris is No 5 with 21,000 bikes, and London No 12, with 16,500). Hangzhou – an hour west of Shanghai by bullet train – is slightly larger than London by population, but its share system is five times the size. It comfortably tops the table with 84,100 cycles, almost twice as many as its nearest rival.
In many other large Chinese cities, though, it’s not the sturdy, official public hire bikes that stand out. It’s the rash of brightly coloured “dockless” share bikes, haphazardly piled on the pavements in their thousands.
Many of these bikes are not working because nobody takes care of them – the city’s beauty has been destroyed
The way it works is simple enough in theory. Users download an app that tells them where to find a cycle, which they unlock by scanning a QR code on their phones or using a combination they are sent. Unlike traditional rental services, however, which require bikes to be returned to a fixed docking station, riders are free to leave the bikes wherever their journey ends. [...continues at length, detailed article...]