Abstract
In urban China, utilitarian cycling plays a significant role in achieving sustainable mobility. Within this context, different kinds of sharing-bicycle programs equipped with new technologies/devices emerge and extend. By comparing two generations of them in Guangzhou (China), this paper explores how new technologies impact existing modes of mobility governance. First, the technical innovations, e.g., app-based bicycle locks and micro-GPS equipment, contribute to liberating emerging private companies from existing governmental regulations based on land control. Second, the adoption of these innovations not only contributes to the accumulation of cultural and symbolic capitals based on a fashionable lifestyle but also links bicycles to personal point-to-point travel data that could be translated to economic capital. Third, the discrepancy between the dispositions of the government and private companies regarding the innovations opens an opportunity for the quick extension of sharing bicycles, which brings both positive and negative consequences on citizens’ daily travel and life. The absence of other civic actors in the decision-making process accelerates the negative consequences caused by the profit-driven fast extension of sharing bicycles and the governmental top-down governing logic. These findings provide academia with implications for understanding the impact of innovations on achieving sustainable mobility.
Highlights
The public bicycle program in Hangzhou is operated by a state-owned enterprise
Guangzhou is an interesting case for analyzing this issue, as it has various categories of public bicycle programs invested in and operated by different organizations
By abandoning the need for fixed infrastructures and adding the capability to collect point-to-point travel data, the adopted technological innovations challenged the core of the governance system built for an existing transport mode and opening a governance gap
Summary
Coming into the 21st century, the transportation sector in cities all over the world is challenged by congestion, air pollution, fossil fuel depletion, road safety risks, and other relevant problems [1]. In China, especially in large cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, these mobility-relevant problems are even more serious compared with those in western countries. Against this background, the issue of how to promote and govern a transition toward sustainable urban mobility/transportation, i.e., a fundamental transformation towards a more sustainable and “green” urban transportation system, has received increasing attention both in the policy arena [2] and in social-science research [3,4]
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