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.