The coronavirus is bringing bike sharing back in China

Meituan’s Mobike and Alibaba-backed Hellobike are seeing longer trips, but analysts say the bike-share resurgence might not stick after the outbreak

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Xinmei Shen

Published: 11:02pm, 4 Mar 2020Updated: 11:38pm, 4 Mar 2020

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Over the past couple years, China’s obsession with bike-sharing seemed to be cooling down. But with the Covid-19 epidemic now restricting people’s options for urban travel, bike-share companies have seen an uptick in user activity as people gradually return to work.

Shared bikes seen in Beijing on February 5, when the coronavirus continued to spread rapidly through China. (Picture: Reuters)

Commuters are returning to bike-sharing because it allows them to ride in open space without any human contact, according to user interviews with Chinese media. An expert at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention even recommended it as the form of public transportation that poses the lowest risk of getting infected with the virus, according to Xinhua.

The renewed interest in taking shared bikes around town is now helping the companies providing them in a harsh climate. This seems especially evident in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.

Hellobike, one of China’s biggest bike-share providers, said trips longer than 3 kilometres (1.86 miles) tripled between January 22 and January 24, when Wuhan first shut down public transportation. And the proportion of trips around hospitals, supermarkets and wet markets in Wuhan increased 5 per cent compared with before the outbreak.

And it’s not just happening in Wuhan. Bike-share companies are seeing longer trips all around China.