共享單車革命：走向世界

China exports its bike-sharing revolution to the U.S. and the world

中國向美國和世界各地輸出革命：共享單車革命

A rider cycles an Ofo bike past other dockless bikes in Beijing. Immensely popular in their homeland, China’s bike-sharing companies are now racing to expand abroad. (Shirley Feng/The Washington Post)

By Simon Denyer, August 31 at 5:32 PM

記者：西蒙•丹尼爾，8月31日下午5:32

BEIJING — To rent a bike in China, all it takes is a phone app, and any of the millions of bicycles scattered on sidewalks everywhere can be yours. No bike stand. No drop-off point. You scan a code, you ride, you leave and lock the bike wherever and whenever you’re done.

北京 — 在中國租一輛自行車，你只需要一個手機APP，然後到處散布在路邊的成千上萬輛自行車，就由你挑了。沒有車樁。沒有寄存點。你掃碼，你騎走，你下車，你鎖車，無論何時何地，一切由你隨意。

China’s billion-dollar bike-sharing revolution has already transformed the look and feel of cities around the country, with more than 100 million apps downloaded and billions of rides taken on many millions of bikes.

中國這場數十億美元的共享單車革命讓這個國家的許多城市的面貌爲之改觀，APP被下載超過一億次，數百萬輛自行車已有了數十億次的騎行。

Now it is going global.

現在，共享單車開始走向全球。

Last month, a Chinese company called Ofo made its first foray into the United States, delivering 1,000 bicycles to the streets of Seattle, with plans to expand nationally. From Italy to Kazakhstan, from Britain to Japan, from Singapore — Asia’s greenest city — to one of its most congested, Bangkok, Ofo and its main Chinese rival Mobike are on a breakneck race to expand across the globe.

上個月，中國公司ofo首次進軍美國，在西雅圖街頭投放了1000輛自行車，並計劃遍及全美。從意大利到哈薩克斯坦，從英國到日本，從亞洲最綠色的城市新加坡到亞洲最擁堵的城市之一曼谷，ofo和其主要中國競爭對手摩拜正在全球跑馬圈地，展開一場殊死較量。

Welcomed in many cities, but not by everyone, the companies are already encountering a backlash. Opponents have branded Ofo and Mobike a menace, a plague and a public nuisance.

許多反對者將ofo和摩拜稱爲危害、瘟疫、公害。

Each of the two main Chinese companies has more than 7 million bikes in operation in over 150 cities, mostly in China, and each recently attracted $600 million to $700 million in new funding to finance their global expansions.

兩家公司每家近期都吸引到了6-7億美元的新融資，用于全球擴張。

Bikes are typically fitted with GPS locators to enable users to find them via the app. Payment is minimal and made electronically.

Beijing, a city where bikes once ruled, has once again taken to two wheels, and most cyclists seem to use a shared bike these days. Greener and healthier to use, the bikes get commuters to and from public transit stations and discourage car use. They solve what planners call the “first-mile-last-mile problem,” helping people get from their homes to a bus stop, for example, or from a subway station to their final destination.

Dubbed “Uber for bikes,” they have proved much more popular than schemes based on docking stations. New York’s Citi Bike, with 10,000 bikes and 236,000 subscribers, is the largest operation in the United States. Compare that with Beijing, which has 700,000 shared bikes and 11 million registered users, nearly half the capital’s population. (Washington’s Capital Bikeshare program offers 3,700 bikes.)

共享單車被戲稱爲“自行車優步”，要比有樁自行車受歡迎得多。紐約的“Citi Bike”項目是全美最大的項目，擁有10,000輛車和236,000名用戶。但僅與北京一地相比，它就完全是小巫見大巫了。北京擁有700,000輛共享單車，1100萬名用戶，幾乎是這個城市人口的一半（華盛頓的Capital Bikeshare項目有3,700輛單車）。

Unlike arrangements based on docking stations in Washington and London, the dockless model doesn’t require government subsidies and is already spawning rival start-ups: California’s Spin and LimeBike narrowly beat Ofo to the punch in Seattle after the city pulled the plug on its subsidized bike-sharing program.

與華盛頓與倫敦的有樁模式不同，無樁模式無需政府補貼，並已在催生新興競爭對手：在西雅圖叫停其補貼有樁共享單車項目後，加州的Spin和LimeBike項目捷足先登投放市場，僅比ofo早了一點點。

Ofo is now advertising on its LinkedIn page for a country head based in the greater New York area, while Mobike is advertising for jobs in Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago, San Francisco and New York.

Ofo正在其LinkedIn頁面上廣告招聘駐大紐約地區的全美負責人。而摩拜也在達拉斯/福特沃斯、芝加哥、舊金山和紐約廣告招人。

The explosion in users speaks to their success. But they are not universally liked.

In China, bikes clog sidewalks and pile up in unruly flocks outside subway stations, shopping malls, office buildings and road intersections. Unwanted or broken bikes are dumped by highways, in rivers and parks, on construction sites or under bridges.

Shanghai-based blogger Marc Milián calls them a “plague,” while locals have taken to social media to lambaste the “anarchic experiment” that is creating “a new generation of trash.”

Shanghai’s government has seized thousands of illegally parked bikes. It recently called for a halt on companies putting more bikes onto the streets and asked them to work faster to remove badly parked bikes.

Yet, in a country where the government puts a premium on controlling its citizens, Chinese officials have displayed a remarkably light touch with this booming new business. In guidelines issued last month, the State Council welcomed shared bikes as part of “the green urban transport system,” while urging local governments “to ensure rational allocation of bicycles and avoid excess supply in some areas.”

Unlike Uber, bike-share companies haven’t angered vested interests such as taxi drivers, but they may run into much stiffer opposition from regulators and citizen groups in the West.

與優步不同，共享單車公司並未惹惱出租司機等既得利益者，但它們卻可能遭遇來自西方國家監管機構和市民團體更爲激烈的反對。

In San Francisco, China’s Bluegogo dumped 20,000 bikes onto the streets in January without permission. City Supervisor Aaron Peskin called them a “public nuisance” and threatened legal action against an “arrogant” tech company.

今年1月，中國公司Bluegogo未經允許即在舊金山街頭投放了20,000輛單車。城市監管人艾倫•佩斯金稱它們爲“公害”，並威脅要起訴這家“傲慢無禮”的科技公司。

Writing in the San Francisco Examiner, Darcy Brown of the citizens group San Francisco Beautiful called Bluegogo a “rogue” company that was “bringing chaos to our public spaces” and posing a “threat to the beauty and livability of our city.” Bluegogo said the company has since pulled its bikes from San Francisco.

市民團體“美麗舊金山”的達西•布朗在舊金山觀察家報上撰文稱Bluegogo爲“流氓”公司，將“給我們的公共空間帶來混亂”，“對這個城市的美麗和宜居性帶來威脅”。Bluegogo隨後稱公司已將其單車撤出舊金山。

In Singapore, the arrival of 30,000 bikes met with mixed reactions, with some people reportedly calling them a “menace.”

在新加坡，人們對30,000輛共享單車的到來反響不一，據稱有人稱它們爲“滋擾”。

In a sense, bike-sharing schemes are tests of the societies in which they are launched and whether communities can look after public goods.

In China, vandalism and theft have been a problem, and it is easy to spot bikes with broken locks, wheels removed or smart codes scratched off.

But that appears to have been trumped by people’s enthusiasm for all things digital, for e-commerce and anything that arrives through their smartphones — what Peking University professor Jeffrey Towson calls “their hyper-adoption of anything mobile, plus the almost uniform adoption of mobile payments in China.”

In Britain, vandalism initially blighted Mobike’s June launch in Manchester: Police reportedly recorded 20 incidents in just the first 10 days, with bikes thrown in a canal, and a video catching a youth throwing rocks in an attempt to destroy one of the supposedly vandal-proof bikes.

6月份，摩拜在英國曼切斯特的投放一開始就遭遇了破壞公物行爲之害：據報道，在頭10天內，警方就記錄了20起，有人將自行車扔進運河，有視頻顯示一個青年用石頭砸車，試圖破壞據稱可防破壞的單車。

“That’s why we can’t have nice things,” one Mancunian commented on Twitter. “This is a real shame. I love those bikes — someone always wants to ruin stuff!” another commented.

一位曼切斯特人在推特上寫道：“這就是我們不能有好東西的原因了。”另一個人則寫道：“這真是恥辱。我喜歡這些自行車，可總有人要搞破壞。”

Yet many more Mancunians enthusiastically embraced their “new toy,” said Chris Martin, ­Mobike’s vice president in charge of international expansion. There were even reports of people cleaning the bikes or jumping in the canal to fish them out.

但摩拜負責國際業務拓展的副總裁克裏斯•馬丁說，更多曼切斯特人真心熱烈歡迎他們的“新玩具”。甚至有報道稱有人自行清潔車輛或跳進運河中撈出單車。

The company has ruled out the approach taken by Bluegogo or Uber, and instead works closely with local governments before launching — giving them control over how many bikes should be supplied and time to issue parking guidelines.

摩拜摒棄了Bluegogo或優步的做法，而是在投放前與當地政府密切合作，讓地方政府控制可以供應多少車輛，讓政府有時間發布停車規則。

“The Uber model is to ignore local government, subvert it, grow larger than can be controlled, and then afterwards ask for forgiveness and permission,” Martin said. “We very specifically chose to do the opposite.”

馬丁說：“優步的模式是無視地方政府，顛覆政府權威，等自己壯大到政府無法控制的時候再尋求原諒和准許。我們則特意地反其道而行之。”

The companies hope to encourage better behavior by awarding users credits for reporting broken or illegally parked bikes — and demerits for correspondingly bad behavior. If your score drops too low, your next ride could become much more expensive.

Ofo began as a student project at Peking University; its 26-year-old founder, Dai Wei, now runs a company valued at $3 billion. No surprise that among Ofo’s first forays into Britain have been the university cities of Cambridge and Oxford.

Ofo以在北京大學的一個學生項目起家。因此，毫不奇怪，ofo首次進軍英國選擇的投放城市就包括劍橋和牛津這樣的大學城。

The economics remain fuzzy, experts say: In China, short rides are free, and many users say they pay virtually nothing. But even with the cost of maintaining and replacing broken bikes, Dai says, Ofo should break even by year’s end.

Towson sees potential for raising revenue with advertisements on bikes, as well as a move to paid subscriptions. He’s also optimistic about the move abroad.

北京大學教授傑弗裏•陶森認爲可以通過車身廣告和付費騎行提高收入。他對走向海外的行動也表示樂觀。

“What I love about these companies is the way they have exposed how inconvenient owning and/or renting bicycles has always been,” he wrote on his website. “Try convincing someone to buy a bicycle and store it in their apartment in Shanghai now.”

In Seattle, there are now 3,000 dollar-a-ride dockless bikes on the streets, and usage has crushed the old docking-station-based project, says Tom Fucoloro, editor of the Seattle Bike Blog. Nor have fears of chaos been realized.

西雅圖自行車博客編輯湯姆•福克羅洛說，現在在西雅圖，街面上有3,000輛一美元一次的共享單車，其使用次數已完勝原有的有樁項目。而且所擔心的混亂也沒有出現。

“Everyone’s scared to death of these piles of bikes. I find that kind of funny — too many bicycles would be an amazing problem for a U.S. city to have,” he said.

“Almost all the bikes are parked out of the way, more or less properly, and if they aren’t, someone will just come and move them out of the way. Seattle’s kind of a rule-following town in that way and that’s playing out with the bikes.”

他說：“幾乎所有的自行車差不多都像樣地停放著，沒有擋道，即使有個別的，也總有人過來把它挪開。西雅圖就是這樣一個遵守規則的城市，這同樣體現在自行車上。”

Shirley Feng contributed to this report.