NWPStaging

Mobike’s entry into the market as a strong and fast growing business coupled with government cooperation was understood as a misleading market signal for great business opportunities (GREEN-WIN, 2018). This led to over-investment, competition, and over-supply of bikes in a very short period. The success of Mobike in Shanghai triggered 13 new companies to launch similar FFBS schemes between January to August 2017. By the end of June 2017, Shanghai was flooded with more than 1.7 million shared bikes and over half of the city’s residents were registered users of a FFBS scheme (Ma et al., 2017). Consequently, these impacts on the market formed negative interactions with local Chinese governments and the city authorities of Shanghai, for instance, responded by removing 300,000 bikes from public areas and by placing obstacles to limit companies’ operation. The rapid upscale led to user misbehaviour such as vandalism, dumping and illegal parking of the bikes, which exacerbated the material stress on public spaces already caused by the flooding of bikes. These increasing pressures dramatically altered government and citizen attitudes towards FFBS schemes, breaking down initial support and concerted efforts to adapt Mobike to Shanghai’s infrastructure. BENEFITS AND KEY LEARNINGS Reducing environmental impacts and achieving socio-economic benefits through low-carbon shared mobility Mobike contributes to an alternative urban lifestyle through access-based mobility rather than private vehicle ownership, eliminating high costs of insurance, parking, maintenance and fuel consumption for users. This, in turn, can significantly reduce CO2 emissions and other material environmental impacts of car production, usage and infrastructure. A 2017 report by Tsinghua University (TUPDI, 2017) shows how 200 million Mobike users in 200 global cities riding across 18.2 billion kilometres reduce about 4.4 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. At the same time, reducing emissions by commuting with low-carbon shared mobility also benefits the user by nurturing positive sharing behaviour and encouraging an active lifestyle. Key Learnings Forming collaborative relationships with key stakeholders at an early stage was critical for Mobike (GREEN-WIN, 2018). Detachment between Mobike and local Chinese governments were not realised until rapid up-scale processes caused disruptions and stresses to governance. The transportation sector possesses a unique set of challenges and implementing FFBS or other low-carbon mobility schemes in the sharing economy is a cross-sectoral issue: multilateral engagement of citizens, governments, public and private actors was missing at an early stage (Ma et al., 2017). In addition to sharing bikes, Mobike also shares data and carries responsibilities that require a ‘virtuous sharing environment’ to support all present and future operational needs (Policy Brief No. 642018, GREEN-WIN, 2018). It is necessary to consider governance strategies to mitigate the outlined negative effects and effectively adapt low-carbon mobility schemes such as FFBSs brought by the sharing economy to cities (Ma et al., 2017). Without local government support to provide road space, parking and other public resources, poorly executed operations of the FFBS schemes can frustrate both users and local municipalities (Policy Brief No. 642018, GREEN-WIN, 2018). Trust building is fundamental to sustain the shared motivations between Mobike and local governments, namely synergising FFBS schemes with a sustainable urban transportation system (Ma et al. 2017). Consistent dialogue and continued engagement between key actors can build trust to ensure all parties allocate relevant resources in a balanced manner to prevent adaptive lags or disruptive up-scaling. While inexpensive apps and simple ICT platforms can rapidly expand sharing networks, FFBS and other sharing mobility schemes must ensure governments have adequate time to integrate appropriate public resources into its infrastructure. This can also ensure Mobike and similar companies allocate an appropriate number of bikes that are optimally distributed to avoid over-supply while still meeting demand.