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Life cycle: Minhang residents show it's better by bike
October 30, 2010, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
Riding to success: Minhang's free bicycle-renting policy is leading the way in showing how such a service benefits the economy, the community and the environment. Since it was introduced last year, problems with the project have been encountered but quickly resolved by the local government and now with more than 12,000 bicycles available for use in the district it's no wonder other cities in China are getting on their bikes and trying to catch up with the ultimate transport solution for an environmentally friendly future.
September 22 was the "2010 China No Car Day" and Minhang District played its role in this event again when thousands of local citizens rode around Minhang on public bicycles that morning. Since the public bicycle policy was introduced last year, this free government service has become a recognized feature of Minhang.
On March 26, 2009, the rent-free bicycle for public use scheme officially began as one of the 10 important projects of the Minhang government. From the first group of 350 bicycles located at the Lianhua Road Station of Metro Line 1 to the middle of this year, more than 12,000 bicycles across 230 docking stations were put into use. And the number of bicycles is expected to increase to 26,000 by the end of this year.
Minghang is equipped with the most advanced bicycle-renting system in the world. Each docking site can provide unmanned service 24 hours a day. An intelligent central management system has also been introduced, which is the only management system which can offer immediate information and quick response on the use, allocation and maintenance of bicycles.
Minhang citizens can apply for an "integrity card" with their ID card and residential registration. With this card, they can rent a bike from any site whenever they want, but they must return it within two hours every time. One integrity card has 100 points at the beginning. If the user returns the bike on time or much earlier, they'll get points added as a reward; if they return the bike after two hours, they'll lose some points from the card, depending on how late the bike is returned. If the points on the card drop to zero, the card cannot be used.
At present the public bicycle system has already covered almost the entire area of Minhang District. The bicycle management services are provided by professional management businesses and paid for by the Minhang government. For Minhang citizens it's totally free to use.
In fact, before Minhang introduced this service, there have already been many attempts at similar projects all over the world. At the end of the 1990s, to relieve increasing urban traffic problems, many European countries started free public bike-renting services to satisfy the needs of transportation in busy areas. In some big cities such as Paris, London, New York and Amsterdam, the public bike service has developed very quickly.
Since it is beneficial in a variety of areas including saving energy, protecting the environment and solving traffic problems, it has been appreciated by many governments and their traffic administration departments.
In recent years, the Shanghai government has promoted the idea of "green traffic" to citizens, using the model of "metro line+bicycle" to solve the traffic problem.
In September 2008, two docking stations for public bicycles were formally opened in Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Pudong New Area, marking the beginning of Shanghai's public bicycle service.
However, because Zhangjiang's public bicycle is not free for users, its development has been limited, giving a chance to Minhang to become the city's first district with an experimental free public bicycle program.
Since the public bicycle system began, the response of most citizens has been positive. According to a random survey, 90 percent of citizens think their daily trip becomes more convenient because of the public bicycle; over 70 percent think "going out by bike is more economical" and "less polluting and good for health."
It's not just the citizens who like the scheme though, most traffic experts also think of it positively.
They think that the free public bicycle can make a great contribution to the sustainable development of the economy and create job opportunities, especially under the current economic environment.
In the future, local government and administrative departments said they would keep developing the free bicycle project, making it available to more citizens and having it play a bigger role in citizens' lives.
However, it was not a smooth ride from the very beginning.
Many complaints were heard. The problems include that the integrity card not working and the bicycle supply not adequate enough to meet the demand.
As a result, the operating company put more bicycles and cards into use. It also decided to change some rules to improve the convenience and efficiency of use.
Firstly, they found from the control system that the average time a citizen use the bicycle for was only 36 minutes.
So from this month, the maximum user time has been reduced from two hours to only one hour to improve efficiency.
Secondly, the new bicycles put into use are no longer installed with a security lock since the operating company found that not many users really used the lock.
By the end of this year, among all the 26,000 public bicycles, 50 percent of them will be without locks and users can choose which kind of bike they want.
Finally, since the integrity card occasionally has some faults and there was only one repair site for the card in Xinzhuang for the entire district, it became a major problem for many bicycle users.
So there will now be a repair site for faulty integrity cards in every town and community. At present, repair sites in Pujiang, Jiangchuan, Qibao, Hongqiao and Meilong have been opened, and the rest are scheduled to be opened by the end of this year.
September 22 was the "2010 China No Car Day" and Minhang District played its role in this event again when thousands of local citizens rode around Minhang on public bicycles that morning. Since the public bicycle policy was introduced last year, this free government service has become a recognized feature of Minhang.
On March 26, 2009, the rent-free bicycle for public use scheme officially began as one of the 10 important projects of the Minhang government. From the first group of 350 bicycles located at the Lianhua Road Station of Metro Line 1 to the middle of this year, more than 12,000 bicycles across 230 docking stations were put into use. And the number of bicycles is expected to increase to 26,000 by the end of this year.
Minghang is equipped with the most advanced bicycle-renting system in the world. Each docking site can provide unmanned service 24 hours a day. An intelligent central management system has also been introduced, which is the only management system which can offer immediate information and quick response on the use, allocation and maintenance of bicycles.
Minhang citizens can apply for an "integrity card" with their ID card and residential registration. With this card, they can rent a bike from any site whenever they want, but they must return it within two hours every time. One integrity card has 100 points at the beginning. If the user returns the bike on time or much earlier, they'll get points added as a reward; if they return the bike after two hours, they'll lose some points from the card, depending on how late the bike is returned. If the points on the card drop to zero, the card cannot be used.
At present the public bicycle system has already covered almost the entire area of Minhang District. The bicycle management services are provided by professional management businesses and paid for by the Minhang government. For Minhang citizens it's totally free to use.
In fact, before Minhang introduced this service, there have already been many attempts at similar projects all over the world. At the end of the 1990s, to relieve increasing urban traffic problems, many European countries started free public bike-renting services to satisfy the needs of transportation in busy areas. In some big cities such as Paris, London, New York and Amsterdam, the public bike service has developed very quickly.
Since it is beneficial in a variety of areas including saving energy, protecting the environment and solving traffic problems, it has been appreciated by many governments and their traffic administration departments.
In recent years, the Shanghai government has promoted the idea of "green traffic" to citizens, using the model of "metro line+bicycle" to solve the traffic problem.
In September 2008, two docking stations for public bicycles were formally opened in Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Pudong New Area, marking the beginning of Shanghai's public bicycle service.
However, because Zhangjiang's public bicycle is not free for users, its development has been limited, giving a chance to Minhang to become the city's first district with an experimental free public bicycle program.
Since the public bicycle system began, the response of most citizens has been positive. According to a random survey, 90 percent of citizens think their daily trip becomes more convenient because of the public bicycle; over 70 percent think "going out by bike is more economical" and "less polluting and good for health."
It's not just the citizens who like the scheme though, most traffic experts also think of it positively.
They think that the free public bicycle can make a great contribution to the sustainable development of the economy and create job opportunities, especially under the current economic environment.
In the future, local government and administrative departments said they would keep developing the free bicycle project, making it available to more citizens and having it play a bigger role in citizens' lives.
However, it was not a smooth ride from the very beginning.
Many complaints were heard. The problems include that the integrity card not working and the bicycle supply not adequate enough to meet the demand.
As a result, the operating company put more bicycles and cards into use. It also decided to change some rules to improve the convenience and efficiency of use.
Firstly, they found from the control system that the average time a citizen use the bicycle for was only 36 minutes.
So from this month, the maximum user time has been reduced from two hours to only one hour to improve efficiency.
Secondly, the new bicycles put into use are no longer installed with a security lock since the operating company found that not many users really used the lock.
By the end of this year, among all the 26,000 public bicycles, 50 percent of them will be without locks and users can choose which kind of bike they want.
Finally, since the integrity card occasionally has some faults and there was only one repair site for the card in Xinzhuang for the entire district, it became a major problem for many bicycle users.
So there will now be a repair site for faulty integrity cards in every town and community. At present, repair sites in Pujiang, Jiangchuan, Qibao, Hongqiao and Meilong have been opened, and the rest are scheduled to be opened by the end of this year.
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