After riding for 5 minutes, it took more than 20 minutes to lock the bike.
Experts on the problem of parking problems at shared bicycle parking spots file a lawsuit
● Data released by the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission show that in 2023, there were 1.088 billion Internet rental bicycle rides in Beijing, with an average daily ride volume of 2.9899 million, an increase of 12.79% year-on-year. Many consumers have encountered difficulties in locking their bikes while riding.
● For a distance of 600 meters, consumers spend more than 30 minutes, and most of the time is spent moving and parking. It was clearly in a parking area, but he repeatedly moved the car for more than 20 minutes and was still unable to successfully find a parking spot. He had no choice but to accept the dispatch and pay 4 yuan.
● When consumers purchase shared bicycle rental services, the other party should provide normal bike return services. Failure to properly lock the bike at the parking point constitutes a breach of contract. Instead of setting up a convenient complaint channel through the software to remedy the situation, the other party forced consumers to accept delivery fees and return the car, further damaging the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
● Behind the difficulty of locking the car, there are not only the "poor parking" dilemma caused by technical limitations, but also the "poor parking" problem caused by improper planning of some parking areas. It is urgent to establish a trinity joint management mechanism of "government + enterprise + users" , find the "greatest common denominator" to improve parking problems and safeguard public interests.
□ Reporter Chen Lei and Wen Lijuan
□ Zhang Guanglong, an intern of this newspaper
After repeatedly failing to lock the car and being forced to pay a 1 yuan vehicle dispatch fee, consumer law expert Chen Yinjiang recently submitted a complaint to the court against Hello Bike.
Chen Yinjiang recalled to a reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" that not long ago, after he scanned the code and rode a Hello Bike to his destination, he parked the bike in the shared bike checkout area. When he locked the bike, the system prompted that it was not at the parking spot. Unable to return the car. He refreshed the position several times and moved the car nearby repeatedly to find a parking spot. After more than 10 minutes of tossing, he still couldn't lock it. In desperation, he had to check "Accept the 1 yuan dispatch fee and continue to return the car" before locking the car.
This is not the first time Chen Yinjiang has encountered the problem of locking shared bicycles. He believes that shared bicycles involve thousands of consumers, and the actions of shared bicycle operating companies constitute a breach of contract and infringement of consumers. In order to prevent the interests of more users from being harmed, he decided to file this "1 yuan" lawsuit, hoping to solve the problem and better safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
Data released by the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission shows that there will be 1.088 billion Internet rental bicycle rides in Beijing in 2023, with an average daily ride volume of 2.9899 million, an increase of 12.79% year-on-year.
The reporter's interview found that many consumers have encountered the same problem as Chen Yinjiang while riding - they have obviously put the shared bicycles into the parking area, but there are similar bicycles parked nearby, but the system keeps showing the distance. The parking spot is still far away; some people saw the bicycle map guiding the parking area marked point P, but they were unable to tell how far away it was from them, resulting in failure to lock the bicycle in time and continuing to charge fees.
Experts interviewed pointed out that behind the difficulty of locking shared bicycles, there are not only the "poor parking" dilemma caused by technical limitations, but also the "difficult parking" problem caused by improper planning of some parking areas. There is an urgent need to establish a "government + enterprise + user" "The three-in-one joint management mechanism finds the "greatest common denominator" to solve parking problems and safeguard public interests, promotes the continued increase of citizens' willingness to ride, and makes green travel stable and long-term.
The car cannot be locked after repeatedly moving the car to the parking spot
On February 9, Chen Yinjiang scanned the code to rent a Hello bicycle at the exit of Wukesong Subway Station in Haidian District, Beijing. He rode for less than 10 minutes to the bicycle parking spot on the west side of Yongding Intersection in Haidian District and left the bicycle. Park the bicycle within the marked area of the parking spot and prepare to lock the bicycle to end the rental service. However, the platform page displays "You are not at parking point P and cannot return the car" and provides three solutions: first, "the positioning is not accurate, try to refresh"; second, "go to nearby parking point P, 32 meters away from you"; third It is "accept the 1 yuan dispatch fee and continue to return the car."
After trying to refresh and find a parking spot nearby, Chen Yinjiang failed to lock the car and return it. He had no choice but to pay a 1 yuan dispatch fee to return the car. According to the fare rules of Hello Bicycle, the starting price (first 30 minutes) is 1.5 yuan, and the duration fee (exceeding 30 minutes) is 1.5 yuan/30 minutes. Chen Yinjiang's bicycle rental service lasted 10 minutes and 57 seconds, and he paid a total of 2.5 yuan (1.5 yuan for riding fees and 1 yuan for dispatch fees).
On March 3, when he was renting a shared bicycle of the same brand near Fuxing Road in Haidian District, Beijing, he once again encountered the problem of locking the bicycle. According to the platform screenshot prompts he provided, he repeatedly moved the car, first "distance 3 meters", then "distance 5 meters", "distance 29 meters", and then changed to "distance 1 meter"... and so on. For more than 20 minutes, Chen Yinjiang was unable to successfully find a parking spot, and finally had to accept paid dispatch.
During this 600-meter distance, he spent 5 minutes riding, and spent more than 20 minutes constantly moving the car to find a parking spot to lock the car. The total was more than 30 minutes, and finally paid 4 yuan (3 yuan for the riding fee, 1 yuan for the ride). yuan dispatch fee).
“Not only did we spend more money, but we also wasted time due to repeated parking.” Chen Yinjiang believes that when consumers spend money to purchase shared bicycle rental services, the other party should provide normal return services. If a consumer still fails to lock his bicycle normally after parking his bicycle at a marked bicycle parking spot, the other party shall constitute a breach of contract.
"When the other party breaches the contract first, instead of taking remedial measures through the software to set up convenient appeal channels, it forces consumers to accept a 1 yuan dispatch fee to return the car, further damaging the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. If consumers do not accept Paying a 1 yuan dispatch fee to return the car may result in higher costs for delayed locking of the car," Chen Yinjiang said.
I was charged 16 yuan for not locking my car.
Chen Yinjiang's experience is not uncommon. On a third-party complaint platform, there are more than 10,000 complaint records about the difficulty of locking various types of shared bicycles: "Parking positioning is not accurate, additional charges will be charged", "Location failed, repeated refreshes are useless, only delivery and dispatching fees" " They clearly put the shared bicycles in the bicycle parking area, but they said I parked outside the management area and charged 5 yuan." "The shared bicycles have been parked according to regulations, but the dispatch fee is still charged. Contact customer service and they will not handle it, and they will not refund the fee, and the manual customer service cannot be contacted." …
Recently, reporters randomly interviewed many passers-by in Chaoyang District and Haidian District of Beijing and found that many people had similar experiences. Some shared bicycle parking spots are difficult to find and incur dispatch fees, some require contact with customer service to lock them due to inaccurate positioning, and some are fined for not having enough time to find a parking spot.
"The starting price is 1.5 yuan, and if you exceed 30 minutes, you will be charged another 1.5 yuan." On March 22, Mr. Yang, a resident of Haidian, Beijing, was riding a certain brand of shared bicycle and found that he could not lock the bike even though he had reached the parking spot. He repeatedly moved the car to find a parking spot according to the platform prompts, and watched the riding fee rise from 3 yuan to 4.5 yuan. In the end, he had to find customer service to solve the problem.
Mr. Yang complained that although riding shared bicycles is very convenient, it is easy to unlock and difficult to lock. If you are not careful, you will have to pay dispatch fees for not parking in the area. In unfamiliar neighborhoods, he sometimes would rather walk an extra two kilometers rather than "match wits and courage" with shared bicycles.
When it comes to the difficulty of parking shared bicycles, Ms. Zhang, who works in Chaoyang, Beijing, is also "very angry". She has experienced at least 10 times of being unable to lock her bicycle. The most impressive one happened two months ago. She didn't drive to work that day. After taking the subway to the station, she picked the cleanest-looking one among the dozens of shared bicycles at the subway entrance and prepared to ride 1 kilometer there. unit.
According to her estimate, the ride takes less than 10 minutes, which is enough to make it to the 9 o'clock clock-in time. Unexpectedly, when she arrived near the unit, she pressed the lock button for less than 3 seconds. There was a "click" sound, the lock popped open, and the platform reminded "Please park at the standard parking spot."
"The shared bicycle has clearly entered the parking area, and there are similar bicycles parked nearby, but the software keeps showing that it is 60 meters away from the parking point. No matter how you refresh the page, it is useless, and it is still useless after moving the bicycle several times." Time is urging Zhang. Madam, there is one minute left before her clock-in time.
If you are late for work, your perfect attendance bonus for a month will be wasted. Ms. Zhang gave up the lock and rushed to the unit, but she was still late. When she rested for a while and thought about it, she went out to find the car and tried to lock it, but she found that the car had been taken away by someone else. At night, she received a text message, "16 yuan deducted for riding."
On March 28, at a shared bicycle settlement and parking area at a subway entrance in Chaoyang District, Beijing, a reporter placed three shared bicycles of different brands in the same place for a locking test and found that one was locked successfully and the other two were locked. The car failed to lock. One of the cars was successfully locked after the reporter moved the car six or seven times. The other car was still unsuccessful after the reporter moved the car six or seven times. The reporter contacted customer service for feedback and successfully locked the car.
When testing in the white framed parking area near a community in Chaoyang District, the reporter also received a system notification "Go to the nearby parking spot, 29 meters away from you." When the reporter found the next parking spot according to the map instructions, he received the system notification again. "Not in the parking regulation area" reminder. Finally, the reporter moved the shared bicycle out of the white parking spot, pushed it a few meters south and north, and then returned to the parking area again before successfully locking it.
Signal interference affects positioning accuracy
For this phenomenon, some people in the industry call it "positioning drift". Because there is a certain deviation in the positioning, or the signal in some areas is weak or interfered, the system's positioning of the vehicle deviates. It is clearly at the parking point, but the positioning display is still there. The difference was a few meters, which made it impossible to return the car.
A staff member of a shared bicycle company said that too many people will block the channel, so in scenarios with many high-rise buildings, especially those with many mirrors, the accuracy of positioning signals will be affected.
Zheng Xiang, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University Law School, believes that the main reason is that the positioning signal of shared bicycles has been interfered, which affects the accuracy of positioning, causing a certain deviation between the position of the vehicle determined by the shared bicycle backend and the actual position, and the shared bicycle backend system will It is determined that the car is outside the "electronic fence", and the vehicle seen by the user has been parked within the white parking spot frame.
The reporter noticed that in order to improve the positioning accuracy of shared bicycles, relevant departments and enterprises have tried various methods such as dual positioning mode of shared bicycles and setting up Bluetooth spikes in the "electronic fence", but they still cannot completely avoid the difficulty of locking the bicycle.
Industry experts pointed out that behind this dilemma are both technical limitations and improper planning of some parking areas. Due to comprehensive factors such as inaccurate satellite positioning and return navigation used for shared bicycles, weak signals at individual parking spaces, and deviations in user mobile phone positioning, coupled with cost constraints, the positioning accuracy of companies’ vehicles is limited, and the scheduling of bicycle parking also needs to be continuous. Investing money and manpower in operation and maintenance has resulted in uneven quality of shared bicycles during peak usage periods, resulting in "poor parking".
The problem of "difficult to park" is, on the one hand, due to incomplete initial planning in some areas and uneven distribution of shared bicycle parking spots; on the other hand, with the development of the city, there is a demand for new parking spots, and the old parking spots are The gradual decline has intensified the consumer experience of "difficult to park" bicycles.
In the opinion of experts, it is urgent to establish a trinity joint management mechanism of "government + enterprise + users". Qualified relevant units should establish awareness of the attributes of shared bicycles as a quasi-public product, and urge operating companies to regularly clean and clean shared bicycles. Maintenance should combine guidance and management, and at the same time strengthen citizens' awareness of parking rules, so as to achieve better governance results.
Enhanced precision and expanded electronic fence
On March 18, the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission released the "2024 Beijing Comprehensive Traffic Management Action Plan", which mentioned "promoting the use of high-precision satellite positioning for all operating company vehicles and realizing electronic fences in Internet rental bicycle parking areas at the entrances and exits of all rail transit stations." Entry Management".
In Zheng Xiang’s view, this move is conducive to the standardized development of the shared bicycle industry. By increasing the accuracy of shared bicycle usage, companies can improve service quality and give consumers more willingness to spend.
Regarding specific measures, Zheng Xiang suggested that shared bicycle companies should promptly eliminate vehicles that cannot use high-precision satellite positioning, or install positioning devices on older models of vehicles. Relevant departments must accurately sort out shared bicycle parking spaces at the entrances and exits of existing rail transit stations, check for gaps and fill gaps, and increase parking areas and precise electronic fences in areas prone to disputes. Speed can also be exchanged for space. During morning and evening peaks, operation and maintenance vehicles and personnel can be added to move shared bicycles from rail transit stations to residential areas and other areas in a timely manner. Parking spaces can be vacated in a timely manner so that shared bicycles can be circulated in a timely manner.
"From a technical perspective, the simplest thing is to increase the size of the 'electronic fence' at error-prone locations, increase the range of fault tolerance, and reduce problems caused by inaccurate positioning. If possible, it is recommended that shared bicycle operation and maintenance personnel operate in areas with many disputes. Offline services are provided according to location and time period (such as morning and evening peaks), and the locks are manually locked." Zheng Xiang said that for the increased costs of shared bicycle companies, the government can consider subsidizing part of it and consumers sharing part.
From a planning perspective, Zheng Xiang suggested that more shared bicycle parking areas be designated in areas where shared bicycles are used more frequently, such as subway exits, transportation hubs, and tourist attractions. At the same time, we accurately locate the actual use of shared bicycles, understand the real needs of users, and rationally set parking locations from the perspective of user convenience to avoid the phenomenon that cyclists have to walk longer distances in order to park.
“Bike-sharing operating companies must continue to innovate and use technical means such as high-precision smart locks with low power consumption, low latency, and coverage without blind spots; build a stable, high-concurrency, and timely back-end cloud platform to ensure smooth signal transmission and reception. Achieve the electronic fence entry management requirements for shared bicycle parking areas at all rail transit station entrances and exits, and provide users with more accurate operational services." Hu Muzhi, member of the Traffic Management and Transportation Law Professional Committee of the Beijing Lawyers Association and partner of Beijing Zhengda Law Firm He said that at the same time, it is also necessary to scientifically plan shared bicycle parking areas from the perspective of urban management, strictly implement parking regulations, facilitate users to shorten parking time and costs, and promote the healthy development of the shared bicycle industry.
A shared bicycle brand told reporters that according to relevant requirements and under the guidance of the traffic control department, they will add high-precision positioning split lock models, improve fixed-point parking technology, further tap the potential of parking space, and guide vehicles to park in an orderly manner more accurately and effectively. (Rule of Law Daily)