JIMI Electronic

One year in and bike sharing apps are transforming Chinese cities, but oversight and environmental impacts are a concern. Almost one hundred Chinese cities, from Beijing to Lhasa, now have bike-sharing schemes. The bikes, clad in various colours, have GPS trackers and can be unlocked simply by scanning a barcode on the frame with your phone. Some can even be reserved via a phone app. With bike sharing APP, cyclists will be able to reserve a bike from one of seven locations in person, via mobile app or online. The bikes can be used for recreation and convenient transportation. The seven docking stations are on a 3-mile loop and within or near popular downtown destinations.   According to a China Central Television report there are currently twenty bike-sharing schemes competing in Beijing, with almost one million bikes. Zhou Zhengyu, head of the city’s transportation commission, said at an event marking Beijing’s Bicycle Day in April that the city has 700,000 shared bikes. It i...

Over the past years, BSS(Bike Sharing Systems) have evolved from unsupervised to fully automated systems. In the beginnings, bike sharing suffered from anonymous use that led to theft. In recent years, the implementation of information systems in bike sharing overcame theft and enabled easy and quick access supporting rentals and returns at automated stations providing one-way trips. The implementation of BSS is rapidly growing. According to Midgley (2009), about 80 systems with almost 27,000 bikes and more than 4600 stations were in operation in May 2009. About 400 BSS have been introduced in Europe during the last 10 years. Markets in America and Asia are catching up.     In order to give more details on BSS, a brief overview of bike sharing evolution  is presented. Furthermore, the automated service process enabled by information  systems is discussed. Information systems also provide a vast amount of data  reflecting the mobility behavior in BSS. For ...