This article originally appeared on our sister website, Urban Family Shanghai.
By Yuzhou Hu
Do you remember the bike graveyards we reported on last month? Well, thanks to a new Mobike and ofo feature, shared bike parking issues may be a thing of the past.
These days, when Mobike users in Shanghai attempt to park bikes in areas such as People’s Square, they will receive a text reminder and hear an alarm advising them to park elsewhere.
The alarm uses a form of technology dubbed ‘electronic fences,’ according to The Paper. Joining hands with the local police, Mobike has installed this technology in all non-parking areas within the Inner Ring Road.
When parking bikes, users can turn to Mobike’s app as reference. The ‘P’ icon displays all the recommended parking locations nearby, while the gray areas stand for the prohibited areas.
If users fail to follow the parking code, they will have points deducted from their Mobike account credit, which is directly related to its deposit-free service.
In addition to Mobike, ofo has also been trialing e-fence technology, which currently services Xuhui, Pudong and Yangpu districts.
“We’ve been testing this technology for a while now,” Zhu Qian, director of public relations of Mobike, said to The Paper. “And we are surprised to find that more and more bikes are parked properly.”
Speaking of plans, Zhu advised they aim to expand the radius of e-fences in the future. “We will gradually set non-parking areas outside the Inner Ring Road under the guidance of the police,” Zhu continued. “Besides, we will move damaged and disused bikes off the streets to give way to the new ones. The first batch, which consists of 50,000 new bikes, will be available very soon.”
[Images via Sina, Sohu and The Paper]
This article was originally published by our sister magazine Urban Family Shanghai. For more articles like this, visit the Urban Family website, or follow the Urban Family WeChat account (ID: urbanfamilyshanghai).
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