There are 2.4 million rental bicycles in Beijing, and the city says enough is enough

China’s capital city is the 11th city to impose a moratorium on bicycle-renting services, preventing them from putting more vehicles on already chaotic roads.

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A man walks past shared bicycles on a Beijing sidewalk in Beijing on August 3. China on August 3 issued national guidelines governing bike-sharing operations to nurture a new industry credited with spurring a transport revolution while addressing mounting complaints over an accumulation of millions of bikes on city streets. The yellow bicycles are operated by Ofo, while the orange units are operated by Mobike. Photo: AFP

Published: 7:27pm, 7 Sep 2017Updated: 7:34pm, 7 Sep 2017

Beijing’s municipal government has imposed a moratorium on the 15 bicycle-renting services and applications operating in the Chinese capital, barring them from putting any more vehicles on roads that are already choking with 2.4 million two-wheeled rental conveyances.

Local authorities of the city, with more than 20 million residents, said it would step up efforts to ensure rental bicycles are only parked in designated, approved spots, according to the government’s announcement posted on Weibo, a Twitter-like service.

The announcement makes Beijing the 11th city after Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and others to tighten the leash around more than 40 bicycle-rental companies that have sprouted all over the country, with an estimated 16 million rental bicycles in Chinese cities, according to the transport authority.

A bicycle-sharing service staff worker arranges bicycles in Shenzhen on August 27. Photo: Xinhua

While they vastly add to the “last mile” convenience to city commuters, the ride-anywhere and park-anywhere business models of most of these services mean they’re almost always parked haphazardly, which soon become an unsightly public nuisance to the cityscape.

The service is the latest to have taken over China’s “sharing economy,” a business model built around smartphone-enabled applications that shared resources from bicycles to prams and even battery chargers and umbrellas.