Newsmart

Intelligent bike-rental service provides new mobility solutions for Chinese urban dwellers

MYSTERIOUS, trendy bright orange bikes have sprung up around China’s capital recently. Part of a new intelligent “rent-a-bike” service, these bikes allow more and more people to experience the joy and convenience of riding through Beijing’s streets and lanes.

For Liu Chao, a 28-year-old real estate worker in Beijing, riding the bike is fashionable. “It is a high-tech product. Using and parking the bicycle is convenient and the fee is low,” said Liu. “It is a waste of money to take a taxi to cover a short distance, but often it is also too far to walk. This bicycle can easily solve the problem,” he told Chinafrica.

The fashionable bicycle Liu spoke so highly of is part of Mobike, a bike-sharing network allowing users to grab a ride at the touch of an app. Launched in Shanghai in April, the program expanded to Beijing in September.

Mobike - a company created by a former Uber employee - not only allows app users to borrow a pair of wheels for just 1 yuan ($0.15) per half an hour, but is also happy for you to drop the bike off wherever you like in the city, rather than searching for a station as with the government-run alternative.

The “last mile” problem, i.e. the difficulty for people to get from a transportation hub, especially railway stations or bus stops, to their final destination, is a long-standing puzzle for urban commutes. With the development of urban smart management, the problem can be solved by linking Internet to transportation.