Bike-sharing appeared to be on the verge of becoming the solution for some of the worst traffic gridlocks in the world, including the ones occurring in Chinese metropolitan areas. Millions of privately-owned bicycles have been released onto the streets of China over the past five years.
There were as many as 70 bike-share companies in the United States at its height1. The number of shared bicycles in use in China's two largest cities, Shanghai and Beijing, reached 1.1 million and 2.3 million, respectively, in October 20172. Urban planners and managers will have to adapt to new constraints brought on by the rapid growth of the shared mobility sector.
Bicycle graveyards are filling up with unused units, parked bicycles are blocking sidewalks and roadways, and user complaints about a lack of available bikes in their area persist. It has been determined that integrating and making use of GNSS Sharing economy technology and services is an excellent way to boost the effectiveness of shared bike management.
Additionally, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a growing number of commuters are moving away from public transportation and toward more personal forms of transportation, which suggests that the industry will undoubtedly witness an increase in the amount of economic activity.
By streamlining processes and providing more accurate positional information, GNSS-equipped shared bicycles provide riders with a wholly new riding experience. Accurate bike location data may be gathered in real-time with a resolution of a few centimetres thanks to high-precision GNSS Sharing economy.
By anticipating the demand in each region, bike-sharing services are better able to regulate traffic and eliminate the issue of car build-up. With these estimations' help, bike-sharing companies can send intelligent vehicle scheduling instructions to road operation and maintenance teams3, such as "filling the gap in vehicle demand in specific areas."
As a result, they are able to reduce the costs associated with their operations significantly. Users also need to be directed to specified parking sites, something that can be facilitated by GNSS technology, to prevent an excessive number of bicycles from being left at a single parking site.
When one examines the technological improvements provided by the dominant firms in China's shared mobility sector, the complete value-added of the GNSS technology becomes apparent.
One of the most extensive bike-sharing services, Hellobike, had its bikes outfitted with global navigation satellite system (GNSS) tracking. Another significant company, Qingju Bike, competes head-to-head with Hellobike and fits its Geographic bicycles with high-precision navigation chips. Meituan Bikes (formerly Mobikes), China's third major participant in the shared bike industry, employs GNSS Sharing economy high-precision positioning and RTK differential positioning technology to execute positioning calculations and correction, thereby ensuring the stability and accuracy of the positioning service.
Additionally, Meituan integrated the GNSS module with the map fence display to make regular parking possible, with lock activation requiring confirmation via the App4. Meituan also includes a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon for pinpoint locating in places with spotty global navigation satellite system (GNSS) coverage.
Initial estimates put this technology's positioning success rate at 95%, which is sufficient for sub-meter precision. In its field, Meituan is the first company to gain patent approval from China's State Intellectual Property Office for its innovative location algorithms.
A time-honoured custom, cycling in China
Ø Bicycles were widely used in Chinese commutes until the 1990s. From 74 million in 1978, China produced 523 million bicycles by 1996. One in every 1.97 urban households and one in every 1.47 rural households owned a bicycle at its peak in 1995.
Ø In Beijing, bicyclists occupied 76% of the road space in 1988, and per hour, more than 20,000 bicycles navigated the city's congested intersections.
Ø Asian cities' high population densities facilitated the use of bicycles for daily transportation. With over 600 million people living in more than 3,000 cities, China had one of the largest urban population densities in the world. As most people's places of employment were within easy biking distance of their homes, cycling became the most popular mode of transportation.
To help achieve the much-desired long-term sustainability of urban mobility in Asia and Europe, bike-sharing is a promising and relatively new trend. The road to a system that operates efficiently is unquestionably complex, and all of the essential actors must participate in developing innovative solutions. This is where the GNSS Sharing economy technology comes into play, as it enables the development of a variety of applications with added value that support a robust and healthy industry while also serving society and better conserving humans’ natural environment.
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