Hong Kong's first bike-sharing company is offline! Would Taipei's piled bike model be preferable?

In Hong Kong, the biggest problems with shared bikes are illegal parking, taking up government land for profit, and too much supply. In addition, the quality of bicycles is uneven, and there are many obstacles in the user process. The government has regulations but weak enforcement. After the closure of Gobee.bike, it is expected that only one large shared bicycle company will survive in Hong Kong, and the smaller one can only seize the niche market.

In April 2017, Gobee.bike became the first bike-sharing company to set up in Hong Kong. It was also the first company to close down in Hong Kong. The company announced its closure on the morning of July 10 this year , which was unexpected and reasonable. In June, some users have found that the company's bicycles are difficult to start, the credit card is debited the wrong money, and the customer service hotline has not been answered for a long time.

The founder explained that the company closed because the maintenance cost was too high, and the business was still operating at a loss, and no new investors were found . The company had raised $9 million in Series A investment earlier, and had also started operations in Paris, France, Turin, Italy, and Uccle, Belgium, all of which ended three or four months later.

The company promised that the deposit would be fully refunded, and would negotiate with the government's Transport Department to recover its 7,000 bicycles, but did not elaborate on the whereabouts. Many users criticized the company for not returning the stored value, and the process of logging in and refunding the deposit has repeatedly failed. The company responded that users can use the bikes until July 17 and will fix the problem.

The incident has raised concerns about the future of bike-sharing in Hong Kong. Since Gobee.bike opened, there are 7 companies in Hong Kong. Citing newspapers , there are roughly 17,000 shared bicycles in the local area, concentrated in the New Territories. That doesn't count at least 347,000 personal bikes. Besides Gobee.bike, ofo is another big player, and the other four (loco, obike, hoba, ketch'up, olobike) are smaller.

I believe that most of them are also in the stage of burning banknotes. First, the time is short, and second, the charges should not be too expensive, about HKD 2 to 6 per half hour, otherwise it will be difficult to compete with buses or minibuses. From the media interview, one of them said that it can break even now,

Similar to the situation in Singapore and European cities, bike sharing has created regional problems in Hong Kong. The first is illegal parking and profit-making on government land. Shared bicycles are dockless walking, which is convenient for users to use and park at any time. It has also become a "necessary evil" of business operation.

Of course, not all shared bicycles are parked in the government's bicycle parking spaces, and many are parked on the sidewalk or next to the railing. Many personal bicycles have already done this. Shared bicycles aggravate street blocking and illegal parking behaviors, and it is even more dangerous to place them on bicycle paths or intersections. In addition, bike sharing is a profit-making business operation and should not be carried out without government permission, otherwise it will contradict the policy of cracking down on unlicensed hawkers.

The second is the malicious destruction of bicycles by citizens. In the first few days of Gobee.bike's opening, about ten bikes were thrown into the river. Up to now, problems such as littering bicycles and destroying smart locks have appeared from time to time. Even if it is not malicious damage, the maintenance cost of daily wear and tear is not cheap. One of them said that the maintenance cost accounts for 20 to 30% of the monthly turnover .

Third, there are problems with the transaction process from time to time. Taking Gobee.bike as an example, many netizens complained that the body unlocking system was broken and they could not ride the bike, or that the user was still charged after locking the bike and leaving.

So, what can the government and industry do to reduce chaos? The industry responded that there are contact numbers to receive complaints about illegal parking. Some say that they will hire a special person to allocate bicycle positions. However, labor and truck logistics costs are much more expensive than rental income.

Some companies have reward and punishment mechanisms. For example, some companies claim that if the user parks in a high-risk location, the credit score will be deducted , and if the credit score drops to 0, the deposit will be confiscated. Another company claims to invent a technology system. Parking within 5 meters of a designated parking post will receive a car rental rebate . Even so, it is still common for bicycles to be parked everywhere.

In fact, the law does not allow illegal parking, the occupation of unlicensed government land, and the blocking of streets. However, in the second half of last year, the government cleared about 5,900 illegally parked bicycles, but only about 300 were shared bicycles, which is a pitiful small amount. What the government can do, it seems, is to persuade the operators to take back some of the shared bicycles in the urban area of Hong Kong. Legislators have repeatedly criticized the government for its ineffective enforcement.

Recently, the government intends to discuss regulatory plans with bike-sharing companies. The content includes: using geographic information system (GIS) to capture illegal parking black spots, strive for operators to provide operational data, operators need to provide users with illegal parking prevention tips, set up service hotlines and on-site inspections. Regulation is better than no regulation, but based on external information, regulation is not legally binding, it is only voluntary, and its effect is questionable. As for why there is no legal effect, the outside world has no way of knowing. One of the estimates is that they are worried that too strict will affect the industry, and the industry opposes it. Singapore is tightening regulations on domestic bike-sharing companies, and as a result , three have closed down, including obike, which has many users.

Shared bicycles have been operating in Hong Kong for more than a year, and the news is constant. Now that the company has been operating for a while, it has missed the best time for regulation. If we don't give up the bicycle commuting model, some commentators advocate imitating Taipei's Youbike's shared bicycle model, with stations and government management. If you want to change camps, the government needs to cooperate with housing estates, shopping malls, and transportation agencies to arrange stops, and the number should be sufficient and convenient. Can Taiwanese friends share their experiences?