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Comment by mhotchen | Hacker News Reader

I thought China's version was incredibly interesting, although yes I agree it's a pain when they're blocking your path (and there's so many of them that it is actually a problem).

For anyone that hasn't been to China: the bike share bikes don't have a docking area. People can park them wherever they finish with them. They have a little lock on the frame that stops the back wheel from moving until you scan a QR code on the bike with an app, then it unlocks.

Given the huge bike theft problem where I'm from (London) I don't think that system would work because thieves would just pick the bike up, put it in a van, and break the lock later. It probably happens in China too, but apparently not enough to deter the companies from doing it that way.

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We have a huge bike theft problem in Berlin too, but we also have the Chinese style bike share without docking stations.

It works because the bikes have very different frames compared to normal bikes, are easily recognised and therefore worth little to nothing on the black market.

Vandalism is a much bigger problem than theft. I haven't heard of theft of these bikes being a problem at all.

That's interesting. Maybe it's a perceived fear of them being stolen, rather than something based on evidence (well I mean they are a target of theft already and sent to other parts of the UK and central/eastern Europe, but docking them might not be much of a deterrent).

FWIW I've also seen bike sharing systems in smaller cities in China (Guilin, Suzhou) that do use docking systems. Could be because those cities are tourist destinations.

In Bristol, UK they recently started a bike sharing system that didn't require docking but had issues with theft and vandalism so they had to change plan and introduce fixed parking spots. They even cancelled the service in part of the city.

The early bike sharing ventures all used docking stations, then things just got out of control.

That system has just been launched in Manchester [1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jun/29/chinese...

We have bike sharing in Paris. The first year bike thefts were high. But these bikes are distinctive, heavy, and custom. Once the knucklehead thieves realized these bikes were worthless public bike thefts went down.

If you have them on the scale they seem to in China the motivation to steel them would probably disappear.

Or maybe not.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40351409

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