Data journalist Calvin Cheng used to spend half an hour walking from the subway to his office. Now he spends that extra time in bed, thanks to bike-sharing apps.
“I use it most days, at least once or twice a day. It’s convenient for me” Mr Cheng said.
Hundreds of thousands of shared bicycles are spreading across Beijing. Unlike bikes-for-rent in other cities, these don’t need docking stations. They can be left anywhere in a public area, and are simply located and unlocked via a smartphone app.
After an initial deposit of about $20 to $60, each rides costs about 20 cents.
Mr Cheng first noticed the colourful bikes scattered throughout Beijing mid last year. He signed up to an app the next day and has been a loyal user for six months.
In less than 6 months, shared bikes have spread across Beijing. Source: SBS News
He says using the bikes solved the “last-kilometre” commute for himself and many of his friends and colleagues, without the hassle of buying and securing your own bicycle.
“Beijing is so big, and you need a bicycle for these situations. I used to have three bicycles in university and they all got stolen! I actually vowed never to buy a bike again, and now I won’t have to,” he said.
There are about 40 bike-sharing companies in China, forming a billion-dollar industry.
Leaders OFO and Mobike have millions of bikes located in over 30 Chinese cities.
The sheer quantity is good for users, but can be a headache for city management - bikes are vulnerable to vandalism, and can collect in masses, obscuring pedestrian paths and even roads.
Once Kingdom of bicycles, cars now reign in China. Modern cities are ill-equipped to deal with the sudden shared-bike boom.
Earlier this month the southern city of Shenzhen banned the use of bikes on public holidays after chaos at a park during the country’s Qingming Festival.
Still, the bicycles apps have attracted millions of users, and Beijing-based urban planner Jasmine Tillu says the pros outweigh the cons.
“It’s true that it’s heightened the tension between cars and bikes, but one way to mitigate that would be for China to better enforce current road rules," she said.
"Also I think when you have so many bikes it’s inevitable for a small number to be vandalised, but from what I’ve seen, at least in Beijing, most people treat these bikes respectfully.
“Overall it’s really exciting for a city like Beijing. It increases significantly the accessibility and connectivity of the city. And so basically your experience of getting around the city is just improved.
"It also multiplies the effects of other forms of public transportation, like the bus and the subway.”
Bike-sharing technology is now being trialed in Singapore, San Francisco and Cambridge. Beijing’s newest entrant, Bluegogo, is in talks to trial them in Sydney.
“We do believe this is a fundamental need for any metropolitan city," Bluegogo COO Ye Sun said. "We do believe that Sydney people need this as much as people living in Beijing. It’s a universal model.”
Ms Tillu says she’s skeptical about the ability to replicate the model in Western cities because of the lack of scale and urban density compared to Chinese cities.
“It’s yet to be seen whether this will work in other American, European or Australian cities, but I hoped to be proved wrong,” she said.
Bluegogo say they’re still working through the challenges of bringing the model to Australia, including compulsory helmets. For now, they’re focused on China, putting as many as 15 thousand bicycles on the streets in one day.
“We don’t want to turn any city into a ‘bike city’ per se, we just want to promote a community and we want people to bike more and give them more options," Mr Sun said.
"We believe this will be revolutionary for every city we go to. It also makes for a healthier life and a greener city.”
