Shared bikes, more a problem than a solution?

PHOTOGRAPHER WU GUOYONG has documented vast bicycle graveyards in over 20 Chinese cities. His drone shots show fields covered with shared bikes abandoned by users and retrieved by urban patrol officers. China Youth Daily comments:

Over the past two years, more than 20 million shared bicycles have been put on the roads in Chinese cities. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of them are now to be found in such cemeteries.

The shared bicycles were enthusiastically embraced by users when first introduced, as they were seen as a convenient and environmentally friendly transport solution, which prompted a flurry of companies, stoked by huge amounts of investment, to offer such bikes hoping to cash in on the trend.

However, only two to three companies have survived the fierce competition, and the bankruptcies of dozens of companies have given rise to large numbers of abandoned bicycles that are a nuisance, if not a hazard.

This problem has been compounded by users leaving the shared bikes of the companies that have survived anywhere they like when they have finished using them.

As Wu’s photos show, local governments’ management of the shared bikes has largely been left behind by the boom. Although governments have issued several rules and regulations on the parking and management of shared bicycles, they have had little effect on either the bicycle users or the companies.

The companies that have survived do input certain amounts of manpower to collect the bicycles that have been abandoned by their users. But their inputs are far from enough to prevent their bikes from becoming a burden for urban patrol officers.

It is advisable for governments to use big data and the internet as tools to manage the issue, prompting both the companies and the users to fulfill their civic duties and maintain public order. For instance, users leaving shared bicycles in nondesignated areas should have black marks on their credit records.

In recent years, with the improvement of living standards and health awareness, people are paying more and more attention to their health and have a greater willingness to have a checkup. As a result, medical examination industry is getting bigger and bigger. According to the “China Health and Family Planning Statistical Yearbook”, about one-third of the population, had a physical examination last year. It is conservatively estimated that by 2021, the market size of the medical examination industry will reach 240 billion yuan ($35.24 billion).

The demand for health services has indeed brought unprecedented opportunities for development in many medical and health-related industries. But it has also come with challenges and given many unscrupulous profit-seeking businesses the smell of money.

The reports about Health 100 reveals one of the major problems about the health industry, namely the lack of qualified professionals. Facing a giant market, some enterprises might try to expand, but there are not enough talents to meet the demand of the whole industry.

With the talent pool insufficient to support the market’s rapid expansion, the desire for profit prompts companies to take risks and hire employees who have not obtained the necessary qualifications. Such behavior is not only a hidden danger for the future development of the enterprises and the industry, it also poses a potential risk to people’s health.

When it comes to health, the bottom line must be people’s well-being. Even profit-seeking enterprises should not cross that line.

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