The Management Modes of Bike-sharing Systems in China: Which Ones Are More Effective and Efficient in Practice?

Bike-sharing is a sustainable transportation mode and can be used to solve many issues caused by motors, therefore it has seen a sharp increase worldwide in the last decade. However, there is no uniform bike-sharing management mode; cities try to find proper management mode, leading to lots of waste on manpower, financial and material resources. To explore suitable management modes, this paper summarizes the typical management modes worldwide, categorizes them, compares the effect of each mode and analyzes the incentives. Results reveal that the utilities of the users and the requirements of the management levels are different from each other. Meanwhile, the economy and public welfare of the bike-sharing systems vary with the modes. The low fees with restrictions mode is the most workable in practice. Another new one, categorised as highfee, no-restriction with subsidy mode, is proposed. Finally, it is concluded that cities should design clear goals and service groups, forecast the demand before launching the bike-sharing systems, and dynamically adjust the management modes with the development of cities.