中国基于应用程序的自行车共享市场
实施对城市交通有实际影响的自行车共享服务通常意味着，除其他外，要正确建立对接站的基本系统。
运输与发展政策研究所发布的《自行车共享规划指南》建议，您需要一个"覆盖区域内密集的车站网络"。"基于码头的自行车共享系统的效用取决于站网络的存在，"共享移动工具包同意，从共享使用移动中心，"和建设网络是一个相对资本和劳动密集型的任务。这个过程还需要仔细的规划，以确保车站安排在最有效的位置-他们不会有负面的副作用，他们的建筑环境。
但是，如果你能像中国一些新企业试图在少数大城市那样，建立一个根本没有车站的自行车共享系统呢？一个引人注目的例子是摩托车，它于去年推出，目前已经在北京拥有数以万计的车队。该公司首席执行官是优步在上海业务的资深人士，并得到了红杉资本和沃堡平库斯等金融公司超过1亿美元的投资支持。
中国的头自行车共享帮助骑手覆盖目的地和最近的中转站之间的最后一英里。信用： ofo
Mobike 的方法在很大程度上依赖于其独特的智能手机应用程序和自行车专利设计中内置的技术。最重要的是，自行车不需要停靠站，甚至不需要停车位。相反，他们在后轮上配备了一个特殊的锁定机制，这意味着用户理论上可以离开他们几乎任何地方，除了室内和其他几个位置。要找到可用的自行车，用户请查阅该服务的应用程序，该应用程序提供了一张地图，该地图使用 GPS 技术指出最近的可用 mobik：你可以保留一个通过应用程序，以确保没有其他人抢它第一。该应用程序还生成用于解锁周期的 QR 代码。
The company is still too new to be fully proven, and it faces competition—including another dock-free enterprise called ofo. But its stationless model may be as intriguing from a planning perspective as from a consumer’s point of view.
Zhi Liu has tracked the development of bike-share programs in China for years. Formerly with the World Bank, where he focused in part on urban transportation issues, Liu is now director of the China program at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy in Beijing. He notes that it’s important to understand the context in which these new businesses evolved.
China has a long history with cycling. But even for enthusiastic bike owners, rough and heavily trafficked roads make for a challenging long-distance commute in modern Chinese cities. So when bike-sharing schemes emerged in a few cities around 2008, as a complement to metro and bus options, the idea was quickly embraced. In 2011, the National Transport 12th Five Year Plan explicitly encouraged urban centers to develop bike-sharing as a useful addition to existing mass-transit systems.
“Planners and municipal governments now consider shared bikes a key component of public transport,” Liu explains, “because it helps solve the problem of the so-called ‘last mile.’” That is: You use public transport, and arrive at a station—and you still have another mile to reach your real destination.
Government programs in China didn’t face the same land-use challenges that might arise in a U.S. city, because urban land is state-owned. But other challenges persisted. By 2011, when a World Bank conference focused on domestic and international experiences with shared bikes, the major discussion was around “management and sustainability,” Liu says. “What business model makes sense?”
A mix of solutions emerged. In Hangzhuo, a government-led model involved setting up a state-owned company; today this is reportedly the largest bike-sharing system in the world. Other cities have experimented with various public/private hybrids, searching for a balance that would make bike-sharing cheap enough to attract users but profitable enough to cover costs.
The latest wrinkle is businesses such as mobike and ofo, both of which also operate in other Chinese cities. These will clearly need to find that same economic equilibrium. But, perhaps because they’re both lavishly funded, each seems more focused for the moment on building ridership and acceptance.
Ofo overtly targets students, using lighter bikes with combination locks, university-centric distribution, and a very low deposit (13 yuan, or about $2). Mobike’s target is more likely to be an urban professional and/or cycling enthusiast. The deposit is 299 yuan (a little less than $50); rental is 1 yuan per half-hour. Its cycles are heavier but also more durable and distinct. “I do hear a lot of people talking about it,” says Hongye Fan, a Beijing-based consultant for the Asian Development Bank and investment manager for China Metro Corporation who has tracked bike-share programs. “It’s an innovative model in China and spreading very fast.”
Fan, previously an infrastructure finance and asset management consultant at The World Bank, points out some of the more intriguing side effects of the stationless models. Rolling out a major bike-sharing system can be, by necessity, a top-down process that doesn’t leave much room for flexibility once dock locations are built out—or, she notes, for “really thinking about and analyzing: What is the real demand from the citizens?”
Bike-sharing is a useful response to the last-mile problem, she continues, but “there is no universal last mile.” In fact, a station fixed in a spot that’s out of a particular user’s way could turn the last mile into the last mile and a half. An almost Uber- or Zipcar-like system that’s more overtly shaped by demand could avoid that.
And there are at least some experiments along similar lines elsewhere. A striking example is Copenhagen-based AirDonkey, essentially an app-based sharing platform that allows bike owners (including, notably, bike shops) to rent out their cycles to others. The startup hopes its model can work in other cities, even those where traditional share systems are in place.
Of course, such approaches involve other challenges and hurdles. Theft has been an issue for mobike, as it would surely be in almost any city in the world, although the company has said it’s a containable problem. Also, the demand-driven model could mean lots of bikes end up clustered in spots that are more popular as destinations than as starting points—meaning they’d have to be physically redistributed.
And, as Fan points out, planning would still play a crucial role in addressing problems that startups can’t—like designing and ensuring proper infrastructure, such as bike lanes, that makes bike riding safe and practical. But that’s true everywhere. Bike-share programs have proliferated wildly in recent years—Africa just launched its first, in Marrakech—and with an estimated 600 systems in place around the world, funding and implementation strategies vary. “We have not found any particular model that fits all cities,” Liu says.
Truth is, we probably never will find a universal solution. And that’s precisely why mobike and other new models—taking shape in China, the country with the most extensive bike-sharing systems anywhere—matter. Exploiting tech innovations in clever ways offers some compelling new potential routes to follow. Let’s see whether others take these ideas for a spin and where that leads.
Rob Walker (robwalker.net) is a contributor to Design Observer and The New York Times.
Tags: Infrastructure, Planning, Transportation
Link:http://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/issues/land-lines-winter-2017
