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How to solve the problems encountered by *** bike sharing

From: Zhihu

AI Financial Society

After the rough growth of ***shared bicycles, the sequelae of haphazard parking and parking were clearly revealed, the president Let’s explore this for everyone – will “drawing the ground as fences” be the savior to solve the stubborn problems of first-tier cities?

From the "angel" that solves the one-kilometer trip to the "locust" next to the subway and residential areas, the reputation and image of bicycle sharing have been reversed in less than a year.

A large number of idle and damaged free bicycles are piled on both sides of the road, and thousands of bicycles parked haphazardly have become a new problem in urban governance. Sanbengzi, who was once a thorn in the side of the city management, was ruthlessly squeezed out of the sphere of influence of the subway and bus stations by Xingxiang Bicycle. Now Xingxiang Bicycle has naturally replaced the former and become a new worry for city managers.

During this period, the governance of bicycle-sharing companies is being raised to an unprecedented level, and multiple parties are involved. Bicycle-sharing companies and government authorities are seeking to solve the problem in games and compromises. The possibility of optimizing the solution is expected to return the now-filmed "Locust" to the once stunning "Angel".

Today, there are nearly 700,000 bicycles on the streets of Beijing. Based on a population of 20 million, the per capita penetration rate reaches 3.5, far exceeding the industry standard of one percent. In Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, which have smaller populations than Beijing, the number of shared bicycles is 600,000, 700,000, and 520,000 respectively. According to statistics from the Shanghai Bicycle Industry Association, if the bulletin data from major domestic bicycle-sharing platforms are added up, the total number of bicycle-sharing platforms nationwide has reached close to 15 million. Starting from November last year, in more than half a year* **The number of shared bicycles has expanded 50 times.

Capital urges companies to seize market share, and competition has caused the "flooding" development of shared bicycles. The governance of bicycle sharing seems to have reached the point where it is “necessary to govern”.

Angel or Locust

At Taikoo Li in Sanlitun, Beijing, two operation and maintenance personnel from Mobike and ofo moved the bicycles stuck at the intersection onto electric tricycles, and dispatched the excess bicycles to other area.

A few minutes later, the operating vehicles left and the intersection became clear. But on the side of the road, there are still densely packed vehicles of ofo and Mobike parked in five rows at most, stretching for more than 100 meters, leaving only a meter wide passing distance - even though here, it has been marked off There is a "*** recommended parking spot for bicycles" several hundred meters away.

Such scenes are not uncommon, from bicycles returning to the city to covering the city's roads and subway entrances like locusts.

Conflict is about to break out.

The Shenzhen Bay Park incident and the Shanghai Huangpu car seizure incident have officially become the flashpoint for regulatory authorities and the government of bicycle sharing. The car seizure, interviews, and supervision are the same scenes as in Didi’s history. *** Enjoyable bicycles are staged. The occurrence of these two incidents was also the core reason for the subsequent introduction and formulation of regulatory policies in various places.

On the afternoon of July 10, the Hangzhou Municipal Urban Management Committee conducted administrative interviews with nine bicycle-sharing companies operating locally, including Mobike, ofo, Xiaoming, Youbai, and Hellobike. The theme was roughly It is prohibited to increase the number of vehicles and not allow companies to privately designate parking spaces.

A small community in Hangzhou put up a slogan rejecting *** bicycle sharing.

"Interview" is a kind of administrative inquiry with Chinese characteristics, which is used to correct and standardize the behavior of enterprises. In the Internet field, for innovative projects, it usually occurs before policies are introduced.

Before this, such interviews had been conducted several times in various cities across the country. In Hangzhou alone, the number reached 67. This scene is almost identical to the situation before the introduction of the online ride-hailing policy. How to standardize and reasonably manage the saturated number of shared bicycles on the streets has become the most troublesome issue for the transportation department.

Hangzhou’s price doesn’t end there. 220,000, this is a number announced by the Hangzhou Urban Management Committee when interviewing companies. This is the cost spent by the Hangzhou urban management department to move the bicycles that were parked indiscriminately.

Nanchang is also suffering from the same problem as Hangzhou.

The Nanchang Urban Management Department announced that it has impounded 26,000 private bicycles in the 10 days since July 4. The relevant person in charge also publicly complained to the media that Nanchang has arrived due to random parking and traffic safety issues. It’s time to manage your shared bicycles.

In the eyes of regulators, "the deterioration of the world" begins with the entry of capital. In July this year, leading players Mobike and Ofo announced funding of US$600 million and US$700 million respectively. Suddenly, one night, the city was overcrowded with cars. This has also forced the government to introduce relevant policies and supporting software and hardware services.

Today, the government and enterprises have to pay for the consequences of this Great Leap Forward-style social economy. The most intuitive result is that you can see more and more cars on the street, and the parking problem is becoming more and more serious.

Supervision and governance are urgent. This not only involves urban governance, but also is a key point for enterprises themselves to improve operational efficiency.

More than 70 free bicycles were piled in a pool outside a community in Taiyuan.

On July 24, Mobike released the industry’s first “Proposal for Civilized Parking of Enjoyable Bicycles.” This is an open letter advocating civilized parking, maintaining traffic order and city appearance, but its actual role is limited to "advocacy."

The wind direction began to change. In addition to Mobike’s advocacy of civilized parking, ofo also began to emphasize that it was the only company with real electronic fence technology. The so-called electronic fence refers to the use of Internet of Things technology to delineate a virtual parking fence area. This is seen as the ultimate solution to the current problem of haphazard parking of shared bicycles.

In any case, at the level of public opinion and policy, the two leading companies are eyeing their opponents' every move. All these changes come from the tightening of policies and regulatory authorities. A scene of online ride-hailing policy supervision is beginning to take place in the field of shared bicycles, but it is obvious that this is a battle with a larger number of participants and more complex roles.

Return to the era of "having stakes"?

As for the timetable for the introduction of regulatory policies, many experts in the transportation and travel fields have different opinions. Some think it will be within 3 months at the earliest, while others say before the end of the year. "The national policy is still in the planning and demonstration stage, and there is no exact timetable yet." Cao Hongjie, general manager of Beidou Navigation Location Service (Beijing) Co., Ltd., told AI Finance News. Cao's other identity is a member of the expert group for the national standard customization of shared bicycles.

In fact, before the final policy is finalized, a management experiment focusing on electronic fences has already begun.

Cao Hongjie has been frequently traveling to multiple meetings related to bicycle sharing recently. The content of the meeting was probably about solutions for shared bicycles and electronic fences. The participants in the meeting were sometimes industrial bicycle associations, sometimes transportation and metering departments, and the same satellite positioning and Internet of Things. Technical solutions.

The ultimate solution for electronic fences is to designate virtual parking spaces on the roadside. When the vehicle positioning detects entering the parking area, the vehicle can be locked and deducted to prevent chaos on the street. Park randomly.

At present, there are four mainstream solutions for electronic fences for bicycles, namely satellite GPS positioning, Bluetooth, infrared rays and rfid technology. Due to technical reasons, any single technology may not be able to achieve accurate monitoring and delivery. GPS positioning is the foundation, and multiple technologies can be superimposed on the foundation. Of course, the cost of bicycle companies will also increase accordingly.

A month ago, Cao Hongjie’s company just conducted a pilot project of electronic fences in Tongzhou with the Tongzhou District Government of Beijing and ofo - the municipal management committee designated an area where parking can be carried out, and cooperated with Beidou satellites Positioning technology regulates the usage behavior of bicycle sharing users.

Such parking spots will be implemented throughout Tongzhou, and may eventually reach 2,000. At present, two companies, Ofo and Xiaolan Bicycle, have joined.

Chaoyang District has also started a pilot project. The operator is a company called Yishitongda, which once provided operating services for Beijing public bicycles.

They adopt a Bluetooth monitoring method that is slightly different from Beidou - as long as the shared bicycle is equipped with a Bluetooth device, it can monitor the parking status within a radius of 50 meters. But the premise is that within the designated recommended parking area, hardware equipment must be buried to realize the monitoring of Bluetooth fences.

In addition to regulating users’ parking, another important role of electronic fences is to tell users where they cannot park. This is more of a concern to the Xicheng District Government. In March this year, the Xicheng District Municipal Appearance Committee designated ten no-parking streets. Mobike and ofo also submitted a "Letter of Commitment" to the relevant departments, which will all be resolved through electronic fences.

In the opinion of many people in the industry, this is probably the best solution that can currently solve the problem of parking bicycles and occupying the road. Cao Hongjie told AI Finance and Economics that shared bicycles have changed from completely docked to completely dockless, and electronic fences can combine the advantages of the two. On the one hand, they get rid of the constraints; On the one hand, it is not completely disorderly development.

“In the early stage, there may be some hardware and signal testing, and in the later stage, we will bring in other bicycle-sharing companies.” Cao Hongjie revealed that Beijing’s Beidou and Yishi Tongda are currently cooperating with the government to carry out electronic transportation in various districts. The fence pilot is an attempt to manage the disorganized and excessively parked bicycles.

Free bicycles parked randomly outside a community in Beijing.

Instead of testing the waters with voluntary fenced parking in Beijing, another solution is mandatory parking. Xiaoming Bicycle adopts this approach. The bicycle must be parked within the specified electronic fence, otherwise the user cannot end the trip. An industry insider who has participated in the urban public bicycle project told reporters that this method is undoubtedly "reversing the direction of history" and returning to the era of piles. The original design intention of the bicycle was to park and release it. When you enjoy a bicycle, the convenience will be greatly reduced.

“After the convenience is reduced, the daily turnover rate may also be reduced, accompanied by increased hardware equipment costs.” The person commented.

Xiaoming Bicycle CEO Chen Yuying disagrees with this statement. She told AI Financial News, "But when I distribute more and more spots, for example, one every two hundred meters, it is enough to cover all your car needs, which is equivalent to parking and releasing at any time." Cao Hongjie also agrees with this statement .

However, another practical problem that cannot be ignored is that it is difficult for first-tier cities to achieve such a dense hardware layout. Can bicycle-sharing companies bear such large operating costs?

Don’t park at the electronic barrier? Deduction

However, there are still many obstacles to the implementation of electronic fences.

Take technology as an example. There are more than one companies providing electronic fence technology, but the best effect is the superposition of Bluetooth, satellite, GPS and other technologies, which means that hardware equipment must be buried around the electronic fence. For first-tier cities, hardware equipment means large-scale construction, which is almost impossible to achieve.

What is facing a severe test now may be ofo, which has used a large number of mechanical locks in the past. Even if it does not use complex electronic fences, changing locks is a real problem it faces. On July 13, ofo once again announced that it will fully apply the new generation of Internet of Things NB-IoT technology - overturning this matter, ofo itself is already doing it.

Another variable is that, in addition to launching a pilot project in Nanjing, Mobike, which has always emphasized technology and technology, has not yet connected to any electronic fence technology, and it is also trying to provide its own solutions to the government. "Mobike is a relatively large company, so it wants to do this on its own," Cao Hongjie revealed.

From the current point of view, it is very likely that local policies will lead the introduction of national policies in time, and the final form may be national regulations + local rules.

But the opportunity for Mobike and ofo to take a breather is that firstly, the technology of electronic fence is still in the discussion stage and itself is not mature. Even if the policy is introduced, it will still be some time before it is implemented; secondly, A large number of bicycles have been installed in first- and second-tier cities, and it is extremely difficult to overturn and implement them again.

After an on-site visit in Beijing, AI Finance and Economics found that many areas are planning such recommended parking spots for electronic fences. The surrounding bicycles are still scattered on the roadside leading to the subway station. As for the recommended parking spots, there are almost no cars at all.

Multiple electronic fence pilot projects in Chaoyang District have not yet taken shape. On Xingfu Village Middle Road, the so-called electronic fence parking spot has no instructions except for the white line frame drawn on the ground and the hardware representation on the ground. The same is true for the mobile APP. Ofo staff stated that this is currently the independent action of the above-mentioned Yishi Tongda Company. Mobike also stated that it had not received any notification.

Since the parking of electronic fences is not yet mandatory, this voluntary approach is difficult to work. For example, even if the car is not parked in the electronic fence area, the user will still not suffer any loss, but if the car is parked in the corresponding area, the user can obtain coupons, credit points and other rewards - this does not have any actual binding force.

An industry insider revealed to AI Finance and Economics that after the electronic fence is completed, it is likely to be linked to billing and credit.

A large number of free bicycles on the streets of Wuhan surrounded the subway station.

First-tier big cities are slowly exploring in a conservative way, while small places are more radical and standardized. Chen Yuying revealed that in the expansion of blank cities in the third and fourth tiers, the government has now begun to require electronic fences to enter through bidding, and the number is specified.

How many private bicycles does a city need? Chen Yuying gave a model calculation: the optimal number of launches in a city is about 1-2 of the city's population.

Chen Yuying, who invests in bicycles in Shanghai, revealed that the Shanghai government has asked bicycle sharing companies to report their numbers every week. Once they feel that the number exceeds the limit, they will immediately stop selling bicycles like Hangzhou. An insider of a bicycle sharing company who is familiar with Shanghai's policies told reporters that the Shanghai government may make secret visits and divide the total number of bicycles based on a scoring system.

Cao Hongjie said that quantity control is one of the reasons why the national policy has been delayed. According to data from the Bicycle Association, judging from the number of bicycles nationwide or in a single city, the number of shared bicycles is still controllable. The problem is that bicycles used to be pushed home, but now they are piled on the road.

Is it quantitative? The government should adopt a more prudent attitude towards new things. Therefore, this also involves the next issue: reasonable planning and parking of bicycles and demand scheduling.

Electronic fences are regarded as the main solution for parking management today. They can not only standardize parking to a certain extent, but also help enterprises with operational behaviors such as intelligent scheduling and demand prediction. Of course, another key point of the introduction of this policy is that it will no longer allow independent bicycle sharing companies to continue to compete for land. According to insiders of the above-mentioned bicycle sharing companies, the Shanghai government wants to establish unified standards for electronic fences and then connect every household.

In addition, another policy also affects bicycle sharing companies. At the beginning of July, Shanghai and Tianjin, which have always been strict, took the lead in promulgating the first group standard for the bicycle sharing industry, and are preparing to officially implement it on October 1. One of the detailed rules is "three years of bicycle sharing Forced scrapping." This is likely to be included in national standards.

The news two days ago was that on July 23, the Shenzhen government included the legislation on bicycle sharing in the 2017 legislative work plan and considered whether to implement total volume control.

Obviously, the introduction of policies related to bicycle sharing is difficult to achieve overnight. A sharp contrast is that it took nearly 4 months for the online car-hailing policy to go from being officially legalized in July 2016 to the introduction of local details at the end of December. However, from the details to the implementation, it is still not completed. .