Ride Sharing

Bike sharing is not new to cities, but Mobike and rivals ofo bike both introduce the convenience that instead of having to collect the bicycle from and return it to a station, it can be left anywhere legal and accessible to other users. China's Mobike said it plans to introduce 100,000 bikes to Tianjin this year. With similar companies providing bikes too, the number hitting the streets must be colossal. The visible effect is brightly coloured bicycles increasingly littering the pavements of most major cities.

Velib, set up in 2007 in Paris, was one the earliest bike sharing companies. The company has recently expanded the same principle to Autolib, an electric car sharing service. The Autolib scheme maintains a fleet of all-electric cars for public use on a paid subscription basis, employing a citywide network of parking and charging stations.

While the use of these cars and bikes is a form of sharing, the bikes and cars are owned by the renting company. The ride sharing service Uber allows people to request a trip and alerts the nearest registered driver to the customer’s location. Uber don't own any cars themselves, the drivers use their own vehicles. Launched in 2011, within 4 years it had completed over a billion rides. Uber is used in many countries, predominantly in large cities, as an alternative to traditional taxis. Similar schemes exist in other countries, including Didi Chuxing in China. Although founded more recently, it is now the world's largest ride sharing platform, receiving a reported 20 million orders daily.

One of the great benefits of ride sharing apps is that it's made getting a taxi much easier and cheaper, particularly at difficult times such as rush hour or late at night when fares can sometimes double. Uber and Didi rely on the idea that there are plenty of people nearby who are willing to make a bit extra money in their spare time by using their car for a spot of moonlighting. This is more in the spirit of the sharing economy than drivers who use it full time. A good example is Mr Hu who works at the airport. His 36-km drive, commuting to and from work every day, is an opportunity through Didi, to collect others on the way. The app allows more than one person to share the ride and the passengers split the cost. It more than pays for the journey he would have to make anyway and provides transport for others at a quarter of the price of a regular taxi.