Uber For Bikes: How “Dockless”Cycles1 Flooded China

文/尼克·范米德 译/施佳能

Uber For Bikes: How “Dockless”Cycles1Flooded China

文/尼克·范米德 译/施佳能

First it was the taxi-hailing2hail a taxi招手叫出租车。wars.Then it was the on-demand service3on-demand service按需服务，这里指外卖订餐服务。wars. Now, China’s internet industry is watching another money-burning battle unfold between rival startups4startup创业公司。.

[2]Within the past year venture capital5venture capital风险资本。fi rms have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into rival companies,all competing to become China’s “Uber for bikes.” Their premise6premise前提；假定。is simple:Pedestrians7pedestrian行人。looking for a lift8lift搭便车。此处用以呼应前面优步的比喻，实际指骑车。can open their smartphones, unlock a bike parked nearby, hop on9hop on跳上。for a ride, and pay a fee once they arrive at their destination.

[3]It’s difficult to overstate10overstate夸大；夸张。how popular these services have become. On almost every street corner in China’s major cities, bikes of different shapes,sizes, and colors are lined up11line up使排成一行。next to one another.

[4]Already backed by the Chinese internet giant Tencent, a recent deal with Apple supplier Foxconn has doubled Mobike’s production capacity12capacity生产量；生产能力。to 10m bikes a year.

[5]Then there’s ofo—which started in 2015 as a Peking University project and now claims13claim获得；赢得。10 million users in 33 cities for its bright yellow bikes―and Bluegogo, Xiaoming and around a dozen more copycat14copycat模仿者；抄袭者。fi rms, many of which have started up in the past six months.

[6]After decades of decline—when a whole generation of Chinese, embracing15embrace欣然接受，乐意采纳（思想、建议等）。economic freedom, worshipped16worship热爱；崇拜。the private car and saw cycling as backward—these sharing apps have clearly made cycling cool again in China.

Riding on the honor system

[7]While Mobike, ofo, and their many rivals are easy to use, they’re equally easy to abuse17abuse滥用。. The companies basically rest on18rest on依靠。the “honor system,”and consumer negligence19negligence疏忽；过失。poses a serious threat to their long-term viability20viability可行性。.

[8]Property managers have started to complain about bikes taking up space besides private buildings, or blocking pedestrians on the sidewalk. News reports of bike-share vehicles piling up22pile up堆积；积压。in dumpsters, ditches, rivers, and even trees make regular appearances on Chinese social media.

[9]The dockless companies seem to be taking the issue seriously. “We rely on volunteer users to spot and report discarded23discard丢弃；抛弃。bikes. But we have also hired in-house teams speci fi cally for rounding up24round up将……聚拢起来。these dispersed25disperse分散，散开。bikes, and taking them to high-traffic hubs or repair centers,” says Mobike’s head of communications, Xue Huang, who points out that—unlike with public bike share—cities don’t pay them a single yuan. “In the Huangpu area of central Shanghai the government has hired maintenance workers at metro stations to call on people to behave properly and keep order. It is a user education process.”

[10]If they can solve the parking problem, sustainable transport consultant Bram van Ooijen, who founded the Cycle Canton26广州自行车一日游，由布拉姆·范奥因等人于2014年创立的骑行项目。tours of Guangzhou, believes the dockless share bike startups are great for the cause27cause事业；目标。of cycling and for China.

“Dockless bike shares have found a niche28niche市场定位。where they don’t have powerful enemies,” he says. “Ride apps like Uber and Didi Chuxing upset taxi drivers,who are a powerful lobby group that can hold protests and bring the city to gridlock29gridlock僵局（因意见分歧而无法采取行动）。. The only people who seem to be upset by the new share bikes,however, are illegal motorbike taxi drivers―who are missing out on30miss out on错失获利的机会。business from metro stations late at night.”

Potholes31 pothole坑洼。 ahead

[11]In June, Mobike raised $600 million in a fi nancing round led by existing investor Tencent Holdings Ltd. It has now expanded to Singapore, and recently launched a pilot service for 1,000 bikes in the UK, starting in the cities of Manchester and Salford. Davis Wang,CEO and co-founder of Mobike, said that the latest financing round would step up Mobike’s pace of overseas expansion.

Its top competitor, ofo, raised $450 million in May from a range of investors including Chinese ride-sharing service Didi Chuxing.

2.2时间分布2011~2016年各月均有病例报告,发病数差异有统计学意义(c2=32.518,P<0.05)。发病有明显的季节性,4月后病例逐渐增加,主要集中在5~10月,共报告病例3184例,占发病总数的68.59%;6、7、8月为发病高峰,共报告病例数1945例,占发病总数的41.90%,9月后发病数开始下降;1、2、3、12月发病数最低,共报告病例867例,占发病总数的18.68%。见图2。

[12]In the sea of yellow, orange, blue and green sharing bikes, a brand new lifestyle has shaped up on the mainland.With dozens of newcomers muscling in32muscle in强行进入。on the bike-sharing market, buying more bikes to occupy the streets is far from enough to vie for33vie for抢；争夺。riders. Rival startups are in a rush offering a wide range of incentives, including more frequent free-ride periods, and more lucrative34lucrative赚大钱的；获利多的。cash gifts, all of which is tantamount to35tantamount to 无异于。burning cash.

[13]At the bottom, startups are fi ghting over services that cost riders only 0.5 to 1 yuan for a 30-minute ride on payment of a small deposit.

[14]Big-spending venture capitalists are injecting a steady fl ow of funds into the sector to underpin36underpin巩固，支持。the ongoing bike-sharing boom, but concern about whether such an investment spree37spree无节制的狂热行为。makes economic sense continues to mount38mount（数量等）增长。, with those within the industry itself questioning the sustainability of the growth model. The “blood-making”capacity of the bike-sharing industry still remains to be seen, said Fielding Chen, Hong Kong-based Asia economist at Bloomberg Intelligence. ■

起先是一轮又一轮打车大战，接着是一番又一番按需服务战。眼下，中国的互联网行业正展开另一场创业公司竞争对手之间的烧钱大战。

[2]过去的一年内，风险投资公司向相互竞争的各家创业公司投入了数亿美元，这些企业争做中国“单车界的优步”。运营的前提很简单：想骑车的行人只要打开智能手机，解锁停在附近的自行车，上车骑走，到了目的地付费就行了。

[3]这种服务模式的受欢迎程度怎么夸大也不为过。在中国主要城市的大街小巷，不同外形、尺寸和颜色的自行车紧挨着排成一排，几乎无处不在。

[4]摩拜已经有了中国互联网巨头腾讯的支持，最近又与苹果公司供应商富士康达成协议，自行车生产量因此翻番，提升至每年1000万辆。

[5]再说ofo单车，源于2015年北京大学的某个项目，如今小黄车拥有1000万用户，遍布33座城市。还有小蓝单车、小鸣单车和十几个模仿者，多数成立于过去半年内。

[6]自行车经过了几十年的衰落——信奉经济自由的一代中国人推崇私家车，一度把骑车视为落后——而共享软件显然在中国又刮起了一阵骑行风。

骑行靠信用

[7]摩拜、ofo和许多竞争对手的自行车虽然很容易使用，但也同样容易被滥用。这些企业的运作基本上靠“信用系统”，消费者不按规矩用车对这种模式的长远发展造成了严重威胁。

“随处停车”的规则是福亦是祸。一方面，用户在附近找到自行车的可能性更大，但另一方面，用户可能会把车停在附近没有人流量的偏僻位置。

[8]物业经理开始抱怨自行车不是占用了私人建筑旁的空间，就是堵住了人行道。共享单车堆放在垃圾桶、沟渠、河流里，甚至挂在树上，有关报道在中国社交媒体上屡见不鲜。

[9]共享单车企业似乎正在认真对待这个问题。“我们靠志愿者用户发现并报告被弃车辆。不过，我们也聘请了内部团队专门收集零散的车辆，然后送到客流量高的交通枢纽或直接送往维修中心。”摩拜单车公关总监黄雪说。她指出，与公共自行车不同，市政府不会给他们一分钱。“在上海市中心黄浦区，政府在地铁站聘用检修人员督促人们遵守行为规范，维持秩序。这是教育用户的过程。”

[10]布拉姆·范奥因是一名可持续交通系统顾问，曾创办“广州自行车一日游”项目，他认为，如果能解决乱停车的问题，那么无桩共享单车的新兴企业对骑行事业乃至中国社会都会有重大贡献。

“无桩共享单车发掘的市场空白根本找不到敌手。”范奥因说，“优步和滴滴出行等打车软件抢了出租车的生意，出租车司机是很强势的游说人群，会组织游说抗议，让城市陷入僵局。而唯一被共享单车抢了生意的是非法的“摩的”司机，他们深更半夜守在地铁站外头，只好眼睁睁看着生意溜走。

前路的险坑

[11]今年6月，摩拜单车完成一轮6亿美元的融资，本轮融资由其现有股东腾讯控股有限公司领投。如今，摩拜已将业务拓展至新加坡，近日进驻英国，以曼彻斯特和索尔福德两市作为试点，首批投放1000辆共享单车。摩拜科技有限公司CEO王晓峰说，新一轮融资将加速摩拜的国际化进程。

其头号竞争对手ofo也于5月从包括共乘服务平台滴滴出行在内的一批投资者手中获得了4.5亿美元融资。

[12]中国的城市淹没在黄、橙、蓝、绿等各色共享单车的海洋中，一种全新的生活方式正在形成。几十个新玩家纷纷入局抢占共享单车市场，在争夺用户的角逐中，仅靠增加投放量用单车占领街头远远不够。相互竞争的创业公司竞相推出奖励活动，包括推出更多频次的免费骑行，发放额度更高的现金红包，这些都无异于在烧钱。

[13]实际上，这些创业公司正在抢夺市场，而该服务只收取用户小额的押金，每骑30分钟也只收费5角到1元。

[14]各个风险投资机构不惜重金押注，为该领域注入了稳定的资金流，维持共享单车的迅速发展，但是，越来越多的人担心，这种疯狂投资从经济角度上讲不够合理，也有业内人士质疑这种增长模式的可持续性。彭博智库分析研究中心亚洲区经济学家、来自香港的陈世渊说，共享单车行业是否有“造血”能力还有待观察。□

单车界的优步：无桩自行车席卷中国

ByNick Van Mead

1 dockless cycle无桩单车。相对于需要刷卡使用且必须停放在停车桩上的有桩单车，无桩单车使用便捷，随时随地随借随还，不受停车桩的限制，只需一部智能手机即可在线完成用车操作。

（译者曾获第五届“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛三等奖）