Original title: The cost of a car is 1200 yuan, and it will take at least 200 days to recover the cost (quotation)

Urban battles: what do they survive in the end (theme)

Qian Jiang Evening News reporter Jia Xiaowen He Lingyao

In the past decade, how many shared bicycles have reached the peak in Hangzhou? The answer is 882700.

Many people still remember that at the end of 2016, colorful bicycles occupied the streets and alleys of Hangzhou. Over the next two years, the number of shared bicycles has gradually disappeared. By 2019, the number of shared bicycles in Hangzhou will have decreased by nearly half.

From 2020, Hangzhou Urban Management Bureau will reduce the number of bicycles. The number of bicycle enterprises has been reduced from 9 to 3 from disorderly competition to orderly development, and the number of bicycle enterprises has continued to decrease to 255000.

At present, Meituan Bike, Qingju Bike and Halo Travel constitute a relatively stable situation of "tripartite confrontation". So why only three bike sharing companies that once grew savagely and competed among hundreds of schools of thought survived?

analysis

What do they depend on to survive

In the final analysis, it is the same word that tests every bicycle enterprise: profit model.

Recall that in the barbaric growth period, every enterprise did one thing, laying bicycles in large quantities. One of the reasons behind this was the abnormal deposit system.

In the past, users had to pay a deposit to use shared bicycles. "At that time, every enterprise only cared about the number of users. The more users, the more deposits they received, and investors would also be optimistic. With cash flow, they would invest more bicycles to attract more users, and this cycle became more and more deformed." A senior cyclist told reporters.

Later things became familiar to everyone. Endless launch battle, so that the road side is full of bicycles, blocking the main road. Eventually, a large number of bicycles were forgotten together with those short-lived brands.

This profit model is obviously unsustainable. In 2019, the Ministry of Transport and other six departments jointly issued the Measures for the Management of User Funds in New Transport Business (for Trial Implementation), which made it clear that operating enterprises should not collect deposits in principle, which forced enterprises to focus on cash flow instead of paying attention to the rights and interests of cycling users and experience. The registration no longer requires a deposit, the cushion is softer, the lock is opened faster, and the positioning is more accurate... The service quality and safety of bike sharing are constantly improving.

At one time, in the Zijingang Campus of Zhejiang University, a group of Meituan bicycles were not very popular. Zeng Tao, the head of Meituan Bicycle's Hangzhou operation, was puzzled. They found through field research that the old version of the vehicle was very heavy, and many girls could not move onto the sidewalk when parking, so they simply gave up. Later, the lighter new bicycles were put into use soon, and the number of daily uses of each car increased from one or two to four or five.

Another example is the car lock. Take Meituan as an example. The first generation lock is a horseshoe lock, which requires manual pull ring; The second generation is upgraded to air lock, which controls the switch lock through the mobile phone; The third generation car lock is changed from the rear to the basket, which is more accurate in positioning and more complete in data transmission.

"The improvement of technology is basically for the user's experience and safety." Zeng Tao said that the position of the user's switch lock and the riding time can be used to judge whether the vehicle is comfortable, whether there is damage, or whether there is a potential safety hazard. "Through the accuracy of positioning, vehicles can be dispatched or repaired in a timely manner to ensure that the city is clean, tidy and orderly."

"We prefer to increase the frequency of vehicle use rather than simply increase the number of vehicles put into use." Zeng Tao said that it is an inevitable trend for the development of bike sharing industry to increase revenue by improving vehicle efficiency.

reflection

Why insist on the "bitter ha ha" business

Whether for Meituan, Halo or Didi, bike sharing is a somewhat "bitter" business.

"At present, the profit of bike sharing is still small, and enough financial support is needed to survive." An employee of bike sharing analyzed to the reporter, and simply calculated the account: Hangzhou users ride 3 to 4 times a day with a monthly card. If the maximum value of a single ride is 1.5 yuan, 4 times is 6 yuan, and the cost of a car is 1200 yuan, even excluding the factors of slack and peak seasons, This car will take 200 days to get back to its original cost.

Nevertheless, these enterprises are still insisting on sharing bicycles, which has their own "persistence" behind it.

Under the general trend of green and low-carbon, cycling has become an indispensable means of commuting in cities. Bicycle sharing can not only meet the needs of people for convenient travel in the last kilometer, but also is a way for enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities.

For example, Meituan hopes to serve public welfare activities related to environmental protection, and bicycles can be recycled. For example, tires can be crushed into plastic runways and basketball courts; The steel body can be recycled and rebuilt... This is in line with Meituan's values and the national low-carbon and environmental protection development philosophy.

Halo Chuxing once said that its position is not to be a bike sharing company, but to be the next generation platform enterprise in China. In April 2022, Halo also removed the word "travel" from its name and launched a new brand slogan of "accompany every day of life".

Qingju is improving the travel map of Didi Platform. For Didi, enterprises can cultivate user habits through high-frequency bike sharing, and then transition to online car hailing business to supplement user travel needs.

expectation

"Hangzhou Mode" of bike sharing management

Since the birth of bike sharing, people have been calling for supervision. The convenience brought by bicycles cannot be at the expense of the order of a city.

"Excessive delivery" and "random parking" were once the "troubles" of major cities across the country. The management of shared bicycles is also a must for every city.

In 2017, 10 departments, including the Ministry of Transport, issued guidance on encouraging and regulating the development of Internet rental bicycles, including clearly encouraging new business innovation, guiding enterprises to launch in a reasonable and orderly manner, multi party co governance, stopping and placing in disorder, user real name registration, encouraging deposit free services, and prohibiting children under 12 years of age from riding.

After years of efforts, Hangzhou's "big butler" of bike sharing has gradually taken shape.

According to the requirements of government managed enterprises and enterprise managed users, Hangzhou urban management and bike sharing enterprises got through the data, and created the "Hangzhou Public Slow Traffic Management Platform" to grasp the number of vehicles put in by each enterprise, vehicle rental status, average daily vehicle orders, overall regional distribution and other information in real time, and link with the information of citizens' car rental, Each cycle of each vehicle can be documented, providing a strong guarantee for effectively solving citizens' complaints and big data analysis.

On the large screen of the command center of Hangzhou Urban Management Bureau, there are three color blocks, red, yellow and green, which respectively indicate that there are more, moderate and less bicycles in this area, and can visually display the real-time distribution of single vehicle thermal values. For the red thermal block, the platform will implement the bicycle enterprises to strengthen the operation and maintenance force and timely allocate and transport the silted vehicles.

"We usually focus on the daily patrol inspection of red areas. Urban management team members at the urban level will upload to the platform or directly share on WeChat groups to allow enterprises to dispatch and maintain in a timely manner if they find that the parking of vehicles on the road is not standard, the appearance of vehicles is not clean, and so on." Hong Lianjie, Hangzhou Urban Management Bicycle Branch, asked the enterprise operation and maintenance personnel to respond within five minutes, Arrive at the site for processing within 30 minutes, and the processing will be completed within 60 minutes under normal conditions.

In order to avoid the phenomenon of over investment and disorderly investment of enterprises, Hangzhou's "big butler" carries out "one vehicle one code" code assignment management for shared bicycles. The two-level urban management in the urban area dynamically scans the code and inspects the vehicles. Every month, about 5000 or 6000 vehicles are scanned to ensure that all enterprise bicycles are on record. "In fact, the filing rate we found was above 99.5%."

In addition, Hangzhou is different from other cities, and implements the policy of free cycling orders within 2 minutes. Hong Lianjie said that according to the national practice, it is actually free within one minute. Considering the damage of vehicles or other reasons, citizens want to replace vehicles and comprehensively promote free riding activities, forcing enterprises to improve their service levels. "According to the charging rule of 1.5 yuan/30 minutes, 706000 person times per month will be discounted, and 1.06 million yuan will be exempted."