Han Ximin

ximhan@126.com

SHENZHEN will encourage the use of the BeiDou navigation system among shared bikes operating within the city area in an effort to regulate illegal and random parking.

The system was tested in Xin’an and Xixiang subdistricts in Bao’an and Xili and Taoyuan in Nanshan and proven to be effective for the purpose of precision parking and its usage will be gradually increased in Nanshan, Futian, Luohu, Bao’an and Longgang, it was announced at a news conference yesterday.

To achieve the goal of precision parking, the city needs to carefully designate 20,000 parking places for shared bikes, require bike operators to replace bikes and update bike apps.

“This involves a lot of work and we have already completed half of the parking designation areas in Nanshan, Futian and Luohu districts and will most probably organize bike operators to complete the rest of the work,” Xu Zhongping, deputy chief of the Shenzhen Municipal Transport Bureau, said at the news conference organized by the Shenzhen Government Information Office yesterday.

At the conference, the city unveiled an action plan for reducing uncivilized behaviors for the year 2021 that will be jointly carried out by the Shenzhen transportation bureau, the urban administration and the traffic police department.

Although illegal and random parking of shared bikes in some areas like entrances and exits of Metro stations, Shenzhen Hi-tech Industrial Park and transport terminals is still a headache for the government to handle, the situation is improving through the effort of government, operators and bike users.

The city has set a limit for shared bikes on roads at 400,000 to meet the demand of the market and be able to offer 930,000 rides a day.

At its peak, the market was over-supplied with a staggering 900,000 share bikes. The number of businesses offering this service has been reduced from the previous 10 to only three, namely Meituan Bike, Hello Bike and Didi Bike.

Shenzhen police will implement the government’s “Say No to Traffic Incivility” policy by tightening checks for violations by pedestrians like going against red lights and jay walking while also keeping an eye on the violations made by e-bike drivers like not wearing helmets, going against red lights and going the wrong way, according to Feng Xinyi, deputy chief of the municipal traffic police bureau.

A blue book on encouraging the city’s public civility during the year 2020 was released at the news conference and showed the public civility index stood at 92.99 points, 7.03 points higher than the index in 2019. The city’s public environment, public order and public inter-personal relationships have kept improving and activities for the public good have been developed in an orderly fashion.

But the satisfaction rates of the public over sanitation in public areas, toilets, garbage classification and traffic management were still comparatively lower than the other indexes, according to Chen Qinglan, director of the Shenzhen Civility Office.