Internet based bike share is said to be so successful in China that it has dented the growth prospects of car share.
Only a few years ago car share was enjoying phenomenal success in China, with market leader Didi claiming 400 million customers.
Now Didi is investing in bike share as its customers choose to grab a dockless share bike for local trips instead of hailing a Didi car.
And it has added bike sharing into its main app, as it has detected increasing demand for bikes in trips connected to public transport stations.
In all of the negative publicity about dockless bike share – with bikes thrown in rivers, cluttering up footpaths, and simply being god-awful to ride – their potential impact on transportation has been forgotten.
Research in China shows that people are switching from car share to bike share because bikes are actually quicker in our congested cities. And they are far cheaper.
Bicycles as a mode of transportation has doubled to 11.6 per cent of total transportation within a year, from 5.5 per cent, while the ratio by cars has fallen to 29.8 per cent from 26.6 per cent in the same period, according to a research report report by Beijing Mobike Technology Co. and Tsinghua University.
It has been predicted that bike share users will have reached 50 million by the end of this year, double the number just 12 months ago.
Highlights from the research report include:
- Men take more bike trips than women
- Mobikes are now in more than 50 cities across China.
- 70%+ of users in their 20s to 40s.
- Bike sharing has more than doubled the usages of bicycles in China.
- Those surveyed reported a 55% decrease in the number of trips by car.
- In Beijing 92.9% of trips shorter than 5km are quicker by shared bike combined with public transport compared to car.
- In Shanghai that number is 91.9%.
- Pollution levels are showing no impact on number of rides Mobike riders in China have travelled more than 2.5 billion kilometres.
- Retired gentlemen cycle further than anyone else.