Shared bike business stable in Shenzhen

A daily average of 849,000 rides on shared bikes were recorded in Shenzhen, down from 5.17 million rides a day at its peak, according to the first quarter report on app-based bikes released by the city's transport bureau.

The number of shared-bike operators in the city has also dropped to two companies, Mobike and Ofo.

The report said the business of shared bikes has become stable, and the bureau would soon unveil new management measures that impose overall control and dynamic adjustment in order to further improve service quality.

The report said Mobike and Ofo now operate 480,000 bikes on the streets across the city.

According to the report, shared bikes are mainly distributed around busy office areas and Metro stations. Futian, Luohu, Nanshan, Bao'an CBD, Longhua CBD, Fuhai Subdistrict in Bao'an and Longgang Boulevard in Longgang District are the top seven areas with the most shared bikes.

Half of the riders use shared bikes to commute between home and work. The average trip generally covers 1.5 kilometers and lasts 12.8 minutes, the report said. Shared bikes have become a major supplement to public transport. In 2018, the Metro service handled 5.16 million passengers a day and buses carried 4.46 million. The ridership of shared bikes reached 1.6 million, making up 17 percent of public transport.

The report said that the two shared-bike operators still have problems in aspects of bike management such as parking, user management, maintaining order, bike maintenance and handling bikes that have been temporarily impounded by authorities for violations.

Illegal and random parking is often seen in Xixiang and Xin'an subdistricts in Bao'an, Yuehai and Shahe subdistricts in Nanshan, Xiangmihu, Meilin and Huafu subdistricts in Futian District, Cuizhu and Sungang subdistricts in Luohu and Bantian Subdistrict in Longhua.

According to the report, the overall number of shared-bikes in the city should be kept at between 500,000 and 600,000. Although the scale of bikes monitored by the transport authority has reached 480,000, the number of utilized bikes stands at 370,000, which means 100,000 shared bikes are zombie bikes that are left on roads unattended.

In a separate development, Hello Bike said recently that it had been approved by the city authority to trial its shared bikes in some areas of the city. The bike operator said it will follow the government's rules and gradually put bikes in Shenzhen to service riders.