Bike-hire users in Asia swapping cars, motorbikes and taxis for pedals, says Thomson Reuters

Analysts are readjusting their forecasts for fuel demand and car sales in Asia due to the popularity of dockless urban bike-hire, it has been reported.

The dockless bike-share operators Ofo and Mobike plan to be in more than 200 cities by the end of 2017 and the end of 2018 respectively and will have a combined total of 30 million bikes in operation by the end of the year having attracted $2bn in funding. Reuters TV reported results from a Thomson Reuters Survey suggesting that 18% of survey respondents in cities including Beijing, Seoul and Singapore who provided an in-depth insight into their travel patterns said that they were using bikes instead of carbon-emitting vehicles. The majority would have taken public transport or walked. The respondents were often using the bikes for the "last-mile" of trips made by public transport. Another, larger survey by Mobike suggested that car trips among users had halved, the report added.

Mobike was quoted as saying that it would operate in any city "where our smart bike solution can address local transportation needs and where we have... support from local officials". UK authorities have asked the fledgling dockless bike-hire industry here to work with them or risk having their bikes removed from the streets, LTT reported.