page_title: Bicycle-sharing system
section_title: Operation
hierarchical_section_title: Bicycle-sharing system / Operation
caption_attribution_description: 中文（简体）‎: 运送和维护共享单车的摩拜单车的工作人员，摄于上海English: Mobike staff transporting and maintaining bikes in Shanghai
context_page_description: A bicycle-sharing system, public bicycle scheme, or public bike share scheme, is a service in which bicycles are made available for shared use to individuals on a short term basis for a price or free. Many bike share systems allow people to borrow a bike from a "dock" and return it at another dock belonging to the same system. Docks are special bike racks that lock the bike, and only release it by computer control. The user enters payment information, and the computer unlocks a bike. The user returns the bike by placing it in the dock, which locks it in place. Other systems are dockless.
  For many systems, smartphone mapping apps show nearby available bikes and open docks. In July 2020, Google Maps began including bike shares in its route recommendations.
context_section_description: Bicycle-sharing systems are an economic good, and are generally classified as a private good due to their excludable and rivalrous nature. While some bicycle-sharing systems are free, most require some user fee or subscription, thus excluding the good to paying consumers. Bicycle-sharing systems also provide a discrete and limited number of bikes, whose distribution can vary throughout a city. One person's usage of the good diminishes the ability of others to use the same good. Nonetheless, the hope of many cities is to partner with bike-share companies to provide something close to a public good. Public good status may be achieved if the service is free to consumers and there are a sufficient number of bicycles such that one person's usage does not encroach upon another's use of the good.
caption: Shared-use bicycle being maintained by company staff
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