Science and technology sketch | micro-story of shared bicycle operators: more than 200 bicycles are dispatched every day, and they used to find a car at night to run to the cemetery

Written by Wang Yadi

Editor/Feiteng

Producer/Yang Hui

"The authority took a picture, and even if there was no special marker, I could know at a glance where it was..."

Zhou Ruixiang is the regional head of the Haro bicycle operation and maintenance department, mainly responsible for the south of Haidian, after two years of scheduling work, he has long become a "walking GPS", without electronic navigation can clearly know the location of the bicycle in charge of the area, between the weChat terminal is more than 20,000 walking steps per day.

Behind the operation and maintenance personnel ten thousand steps movement is the scale of more than 200 million users, on July 30, Ai Media Consulting released the "Special Research Report on the Development of Shared Mobility in China in the First Half of 2021", and China's shared bicycle users reached 253 million in 2020. Ai Media Consulting analysts believe that with initiatives such as carbon neutrality and healthy travel and users gradually adapting to the market, the scale of users sharing bicycles will have a substantial leap forward.

The shared bicycle market, which is in a stable period, still has problems that cause Zhou Ruixiang headaches.

More than 200 bicycles are dispatched every day, and 0530 is the main assessment standard

One of the important daily tasks of operation and maintenance personnel is vehicle scheduling, Zhou Ruixiang introduced to reporters, from 7 am to almost 6 pm is their main working time, morning peak and evening peak are particularly important.

The work of scheduling can be roughly divided into emergency dredging and looking for dispatching idle cars, and many cars will be piled up in an instant during the morning rush hour, and they will clear these cars in time. At the same time, in the process of operation, if a faulty car is found, the faulty car needs to be dealt with. For some vehicles that have not been ridden for a long time, they are also responsible for touring these vehicles, cleaning and disinfecting them, and then releasing them, which is called scheduling idle vehicles.

"Probably our load is 20 cars a car, about 10 trips a day, a total of about 200 cars."

On the way to lead the reporter to the bicycle dispatch point, a Haro operation and maintenance master is loading the vehicle, Zhou Ruixiang said, "For the veterans, they will study how to swing, according to the urgency of the case, sometimes the load of the car can reach more than 30", the reporter inquired and found that the tricycle was full of 25 bicycles, and each floor was placed in a different position and crossed in an orderly manner.

(O&M master fully loaded with 25 bicycles)

It is reported that the weight of a bicycle is about 10kg, the operation and maintenance master will transport about 200-250kg a car, the physical test of the operation and maintenance personnel put forward requirements, physical health and hard-working is basic, according to Zhou Ruixiang, many veterans will be engaged in this industry. However, many old comrades do not like to look at mobile phones, and the training in the use of their smart devices has become the first lesson of entry.

Daily bicycle scheduling and maintenance of order is only part of the work assessment, response timeliness, turnover rate, vehicle health, etc. are important standards.

Zhou Ruixiang said, "Our main assessment is the 0530 standard, and we must respond to the case of the competent unit within 5 minutes, and then we must be present within 30 minutes." For very urgent cases and a large amount of accumulation, additional personnel will be allocated for emergency treatment, and the processing will basically last for about 40 minutes", he further pointed out that this standard is mainly calculated by region, and it is not particularly absolute, and it will still ensure safety while stressing.

The effectiveness of vehicle scheduling, that is, the turnover rate, is also the focus of their assessment. "We can't work for ourselves to be simple, the car to no one rides", Zhou Ruixiang introduced, mainly through technical means to achieve intelligent scheduling, they will receive intelligent dispatches generated in real time from the software, sent to the corresponding demand points nearby, if the end point is not well grasped, the vehicle utilization and reuse rate will be very low.

As for the guarantee of vehicle health, in addition to the user's initiative to report obstacles, they are more on the road patrol, the bad car maintenance, which has to mention Zhou Ruixiang's unforgettable "car history".

Climbing stairs and basements is a common thing, and once looking for a car at night to run to the cemetery

"For us, the vehicle may be in the basement, it may be upstairs, and there are many scenes."

Zhou Ruixiang told reporters that once he entered a building when looking for a missing car, because it was not a three-dimensional positioning, he needed to look for it on the next floor, he took the elevator to the 26th floor to climb down layer by floor, and finally found the missing car on the third floor.

However, this situation is still relatively common, and what Zhou Ruixiang remembers deeply is the "cemetery car hunting".

In the winter of 2019, Zhou Ruixiang found that he had lost several cars through software on the east side of the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway, it was already 11:30 at night, because they needed to complete the dispatch feedback before 12 o'clock on the same day, so he accelerated to the destination at about 11:40.

"I looked for the past according to the location, found that it was a particularly large cemetery, was frightened", he walked in to see that it was man-made damage, there were many bicycles in the depths of the cemetery were burned and destroyed, "even the trees are black, the key is more than 11 o'clock, it is a cemetery, or a winter, there is no one around the black." ”

Considering that it may involve illegal crimes, Zhou Ruixiang did not stay too much that night, and after dawn the next day, he went to the scene to take photos and call the police, "I have a deep memory, burned our 6 cars, but other people's homes have many cars, just burned them there, which is particularly terrible." ”

(Pictures of the burned bicycles in the cemetery provided by Zhou Ruixiang)

To this day, when he thinks about it, he still has some fears.

For shared bicycle operation and maintenance personnel, daily work such as finding missing cars and placing vehicles has often been transformed into a "conditioned reflex".

On the third day of the first month of this year, Zhou Ruixiang did not rest, about 13:30 noon to haidian district Jingmi diversion canal to catch a discarded car, but suffering from no tools around, he bought a jump rope in the next store, and rolled up a knot to fish out the car. In his impression, there was a kind citizen who was passing by at that time, who was not afraid of the cold and water, and gave him a handle.

(Shared bikes abandoned in the river)

There are drawbacks in individual parking areas, and there is a cooperative relationship with the urban management

Finding a car is not the most headache for them, because there is friction between the user and the user because of persuasion to park in the designated area.

"For example, we will guide them to park the car from the C port to the B port, but need to cross a road, because the B port has a place to park, when the first guide many people do not understand, will indeed say some unpleasant words", Zhou Ruixiang sighed, this is indeed a headache problem, but still based on persuasion.

Parking irregularities can be seen everywhere, the reporter followed Zhou Ruixiang to the bicycle dispatch point on the road, found that the phenomenon of occupying the blind lane parking is very common, he casually placed the vehicles on the blind lane neatly. "Sometimes it is neatly arranged, and when others stop, they don't stop randomly", but in his opinion, this situation is also difficult to cure.

(Zhou Ruixiang cleans up shared bicycles that occupy blind lanes)

The reasonable performance of the parking marking area effectively reduces similar problems, some areas are basically no one to park after the marking, and some areas have a very large demand for bicycles, and the marking area is small, which will cause the order problem of no car to park or random parking.

"Because everyone's commuting path is the same, our scheduling points are also the same, naturally forming a kind of law, some lines I think are slightly unreasonable", but for them, it is impossible to see a person to say it, this is also a difficult point, through the technical means of the normative effect is limited.

According to Zhou Ruixiang, Hello launched the "Bluetooth Road Spike" sensing technology, which senses the actual position of the vehicle through the Bluetooth signal. The user can only successfully unlock the lock if he stops in the prescribed parking area; when parking outside the prescribed white box, the smart lock of the vehicle will automatically pop open and the order cannot be terminated. In his view, there are pros and cons to this technical means, "If there is this technology, we are really good at control, because the user can't lock it will be in a hurry, and it will definitely find a way to lock there, but if there is a lot of traffic in this place, the white box is relatively small, and there are too many cars that rush in instantaneously, which will cause serious accumulation." ”

Maintaining the overall parking order of the city is far from enough to rely on one link alone, and the division of labor of each team of operation and maintenance personnel is a linkage system. For example, for the road surface can not be repaired car, you need to mark it, the marking information will be directly linked to the asset group master; in terms of maintenance, there will be a special group called the maintenance team, responsible for the vehicle within the specified time to repair the warehouse, this process is a whole.

"We have gradually become a cooperative relationship with the urban management, and there is a work dispatch group with the street or the competent unit, and which case they send, we must reply and deal with it in time," Zhou Ruixiang said, some streets will also provide them with rest places, work on the local road, if you see them loading the car, you will also help to catch the handle.

This cooperative relationship is reflected in the common progress of both sides, "our technology is not stagnant, the ideas and methods of the competent units are not stagnant, we will solve problems together", he lamented, the two sides are a kind of government-enterprise cooperation, common progress, for the construction of the urban environment to work together.

In April this year, the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission issued the "2020 Operation Supervision of the Internet Rental Bicycle Industry and the Announcement of the Scale of Vehicle Launch in 2021", and by the end of 2020, Beijing has completed the construction of 31 "electronic fence" parking areas, covering 772 parking spots. The city's bicycle and electric vehicle industry association, together with various operating enterprises, has formulated the reward and punishment rules for the "settlement of the column" of Internet rental bicycles in Beijing, and standardized the measures for jointly guiding tenants to park their vehicles in an orderly manner.

"Reversing the car must be supported, dirty car must be wiped" is their work slogan, which not only requires the efforts of operation and maintenance personnel, but also requires users to improve their consciousness, and the enterprise and the government link to form a good parking atmosphere.

This article originated from Blue Whale Finance