newcastle
the next Mobike landfill?
Image credit to @鸟人与鱼
By Mengyuan Ren
m.ren3@newcastle.ac.uk
What is Mobike?
Mobike is a bike-sharing company based in China, which is designed for protecting environment, reducing congestion and improving quality of city life. Establishing in 2015, it is the world’s first smart, dock-less bike-sharing platform and now has developed into the largest shared bicycle operator in the World. It first tried its hand at Shanghai in December, 2015 and made it the world’s largest bike-share city. It then accelerated its expansion scheme and developed its business into over 200 cities in the World.
How it works?
Mobike is famous for its high-tech lock system and dock-less feature, which makes city cycling life more convenient. The only thing you need to do is download an APP, unlock a Mobike by scanning its code and ride it. Every Mobike has a GPS tracker. Locations of Mobikes will be shown on the map in its APP. Users can park at anywhere they want within operating area and lock it again. When it first came to the UK market, riders were only charged £0.5/30 minutes after paying a refundable deposit. However, the price was rose to £0.5/20 minutes after lots of dock-less bikes had been vandalised.
Chinese bike-sharing market,
from garden to graveyard?
Image credit to @鸟人与鱼
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As the first testing market of Mobike, it seems the dock-less bike-sharing industry has more problems than what we imagined. The most significant problem is the over-crowded market. There are more than 15 bike-sharing companies in China, among which Mobike and Ofo are the most competitive companies. In order to take an advantaged place in market, every company put a large number of dock-less bicycles in the cities with attractive price. This is how sharing bikes boost in China. However, at the same time, it turns china as a landfill of dock-less bikes as a result of the marketing war. According to the East Day, it is reported that about 23 million sharing bikes were put into market in 2017. It has become a common scene that thousands of bikes were left on cycling and pedestrianized lanes for months in many Chinese cities. “It caused lots of trouble on management in our community, many sharing bikes are parked at the entrance which impede other vehicles or pedestrians to pass,” said Xiu Xu, a community manager in Shanghai.
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Also, a large amount of bikes were vandalised and dumped, which has been very common in many bike-sharing markets around the World. Many bikes were thrown into canals and groves. Some even lost components and cannot be recycled. In China, more than 1 million sharing bicycles were dumped in 2017, according to the East Day. In Guangzhou, 3,000 sharing bikes were fished out in July, among which 61% are Mobikes, according to CCTV (China Central Television) Finance. It’s also reported that most of these bikes were thrown on purpose and cannot be used again. Besides, some people possess these sharing bikes as their own by damaging the lock system and installing their own locks.
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Companies have already stopped putting more sharing bikes in first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Starting a new business model is not easy. So far, the listed bike-sharing companies are all in the red, according to iiMedia Research. It’s hard to make a profit by deposit alone considering a large amount of operating fees. This could be the reason why several middle and small sized bike-sharing companies went bankrupt. The industry is still exploring how to make profit in the market. Following its unknown future in an over saturated market, bicycle manufacturing industry seems more depressing. In Wangtuoqing Town, a small town famous for producing bikes in Tianjin, 200 stores were collapsed as bike sharing industry cools down. The overproduced sharing bikes can only become scrap iron since it cannot be recycled to use on normal bikes.
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Image:Sina Guangdong
Image: Shanxi TV News
Image:Xi'an Evening News
Image:Xi'an Evening News
Image: Wiki
Image: Shanxi TV News
Newcastle,
the next Mobike landfill?
Mobike’s bike-sharing business is just started overseas. Nevertheless, it never slows down its expansion. 1000 Mobikes were initially released in Manchester in June, which was followed by London in September. It came to Newcastle by the end of September. So far, it has put about 1000 Mobikes around Newcastle area including Newcastle City Centre, Gosforth, Jesmond and Gateshead.
Smilar problems appeared in Newcastle as well. It raises lots of concerns while many people enjoy riding. Improper parking is the main issue. People left them in private parking property, cycling lanes, groves, mire and even some of those were thrown in river. Similar to the case in Guangzhou, about 20 Mobikes were fished out the River Tyne in Newcastle in June after 1000 bikes were put in the place, according to the Chronicle. Likewise, a volunteer removed seven Mobikes from the river Ouseburn only in one weekend according to Chris Barnard, the chief officer in Ouseburn Trust. “There is no evidence to suppose that discarding a hire bike in a river is done by the hirer - in fact, but the evidence shows that it is not the same persons,” Dave Cross from Ouseburn Valley Trust said. It seems Mobike’s collection scheme doesn’t work well, according to Dave. He revealed the ratio of staff to bikes is 1 : 750 in Newcastle.
Source: Chronicle Live
dumped Mobikes in Newcastle
Besides, parking spaces are tighter after hundreds of Mobikes flocked into Newcastle. “I think it is unhelpful, given they have kickstands to support them, they are often located in bike racks around the city. Many people who visit the Ouseburn Valley travel here on their own bike and can’t use the cycle racks without first removing a Mobike,” Chris said. Likewise, some students who live in Garth Heads student accommodation cannot access to their parking bays where they have paid for because lots of Mobikes were left there, according to the Garth Heads reception. Sara Beteman, the shop manager from The Journey which is a bike recycling charity in Newcastle, revealed that Mobike took up half of the parking spaces nearby and people complained they don’t have enough parking spaces. “I think it could possibly happen that they just move on to next city and started going ‘hey we have fantastic rental bikes. Let’s do this town.’ Then they move on to the next town and next town, and then they have thousands of unused bikes,” said sara. Mobike which is initially designed for reducing congestion seems to ride to the opposite direction.
Cycle racks in front of The Journey
More and more people are aware of this issue and posted those damaged and dumped bikes on social media.
Mobike was found outside Northumbria Uni atudent accommodation
Some people even creates an Instagram page to post the abandoned Mobikes in Newcastle. One of the creators of “abandoned_mobikes_of_newcastle”, who would not like to be mentioned, shared why they decided to create the page: “we started spotting Mobikes in Newcastle lying on pavements, tossed aside, disrespected and abandoned and joked between ourselves and found it funny, then it kind of just evolved into abandoned Mobikes of Newcastle and we decided to create the Instagram page.” However, when asked whether he want more Mobikes in Newcastle, he still holds a positive attitude. “They are really good, handy for people getting about and keeps people active, but it's always going to affect the environment when it gets burnt or dumped in the river. The bike is the innocent party but it ends up in some stupid places,” he said.
Although there are lots of complains about the dock-less bikes, many people still think the concept of Mobike is good.
“It encourages sustainable transport and might serve to reduce car usage. And also assists people in an active lifestyle. But it is a shame that the provision is abused,” said Chris from Ouseburn Trust.
“The idea is good. It’s users’ fault, people just need education,” said sara.
“I would be content to see more bikes assigned to Newcastle / Tyneside if there was an adequate team of collection and maintenance staff,” said Dave.
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Mobike indicated they can’t give any response to these issues at the moment as their operations manager in Newcastle is very busy these days. But one thing for sure is those damaged Mobikes can only be recycled to use on Mobikes again or it would go to landfills. This is also the reason why the bike manufacturers in China can’t find a good way to deal with those overproduced sharing bikes. “For Mobike, you can’t recycle anything. It’s more vulnerable than normal bikes. You can’t take a bite of Mobike and put on a normal bike. Mobike has to be a Mobike one,” another bike mechanic from The Journey said. “Mobike is very specific part, not general part. I assume it’s quite expensive to fix it, I would suggest replace it,” said James Grey, a shop mechanic from Recycle y’Bike.
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It’s still unknown whether Mobike will put more bikes to take up the UK market like it did in China, or cost more to take actions to deal with the existing problems and control the number of bikes.
“ I am dissapointed that the driver of the Mobike scheme is more for gathering data for marketing purposes rather than for contributing to a lasting modal change in travel behaviour,” Dave said.
There are too many uncertainties in Mobike’s future. It’s still waiting to be checked whether Mobike can improve quality of city life and reduce congestion as they first advocated.
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Would Newcastle become next Mobike landfill or a proud cycling green city? Only time can tell.
Any questions please contact Mengyuan Ren at m.ren3@newcastle.ac.uk
Twitter @RMengyuan
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