According to a report released on Wednesday, the increasing popularity of bike-sharing provides urban residents an alternative for short trips in cities and is assumed to boost healthy urban development.
Bike-sharing had revived China's love for bikes with more Chinese people preferring bikes over cars in making short urban trips, based on the report issued by Beijing Mobike Technology Co Ltd and Beijing Tsinghua Tongheng Urban Planning and Design Institute.
Out of the 100,000 residents surveyed in 36 cities, 55 percent said that they had decreased their trips by car, while 53 percent had declined the use of unlicensed motorcycles as they began sharing bikes.
People have decreased their trips by car since the launch of shared bikes, said Wang Peng, deputy chief engineer of the innovation center for technology at Tsinghua Tongheng.
“Previously, trips made by cars accounted for 29.8 percent of the total trips inside the city, while only 5.5 percent of trips were made by bike. Following the booming bike-sharing trend, the proportion of trips by car dropped to 26.6 percent and the proportion of bike rides doubled to 11.6 percent (both privately owned and shared bikes),” Wang said.
The excitement for high-tech shared bikes is not limited to the young. Retired men, typically over the age of 60, had the longest travels, based on the data from Mobike. 70 percent of Mobike users were born in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
Shenzhen residents ranked first in terms of the number of rides made in the midnight to early morning period. Shanghai, on the other hand, has the most number of people that use bike-sharing to go to work.
According to experts, the bike-sharing sector will assist in improving the urban environment as a whole.
The boom of bike-sharing not only lessens the urban traffic congestion but will also aid in increasing the efficiency of urban space use, said Wang.
“Taking Beijing as an example, the parking space for a normal-sized car can fit 10 bikes. If more people choose shared bikes, an area equivalent to the size of five Bird's Nest stadiums would be saved,” he said.
Bike-sharing has not only reinvigorated China’s love for bikes. It is also helping to the promotion of healthy urban development.