The turnover of bike sharing in China is about 1.3 billion euros, there are about seventy rental companies, the sector has definitely exploded in 2017. Unfortunately, however, ill-considered investments have caused a burst an inconvenience in the compartment only a year later.
The negative side of bike-sharing is emerging, after the boom in sharing bikes, the supply of these bikes soon outstripped demand and many companies went bankrupt. In 2018, photos of what have been called gods began to be published on the internet real bicycle cemeteries, scattered throughout China. According to Bloomberg today, however, the number of renters has decreased and the objectives have also changed, focusing on a more conscious and sustainable mobility. Unfortunately, however, in the meantime, real ones were born on the streets of the country improvised open dumps, where about 30 million rundown bicycles lie, which should be fixed or at least disposed of. China’s largest used bicycle cemetery is located in Fujan, Southeast China and contains around 200,000.
The multimillion dollar investments have disappeared and so today taxpayers should be paying for the removal of bikes that are everywhere. According to Hangzhou city authorities, remove a bicycle from circulation costs 9.6 yuan, or about 1.20 euros. China Recycling is just one of the companies that has come to the aid of the country, removing about 4 million cycles, reusing their materials.
After the months of lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic that hit the whole world, in China in March there was talk of rebirth of bike sharing, the return to work was sponsored by bicycle, rather than by other public transport. In fact, some companies show today that journeys longer than 3 km have doubled compared to 2019.
In this regard, for about a year already, the daily journeys of electric scooters and bicycles have increased and, also for this reason, some bike sharing companies such as Mobike they had already announced that they would launch and put new e-bikes into circulation. The various realities of the territory are also investing to identify the points of the cities where it is the greater the demand of bicycles. The hope is to be able to dispose of all these bicycle cemeteries born in China, but ‘unfortunately’ today the country is returning to pre-Covid normality and bike sharing is gradually being abandoned. The only glimmer of light could come from tourism, while it is hoped that the Government will do something to revive the economy
Fonte: Getty Images
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