Mobike, ofo Share Bicycle Data, Reveal Cycling Heat Map

Two major bike-sharing companies, Mobike and ofo, have announced plans to share their big data. On January 17, ofo launched its Qidian Urban Traffic Management Platform and opened its big data to the government. More than 20 Chinese cities have signed an agreement to use Qidian. Mobike also opened its big data related to travel on January 17. On the premise of ensuring user privacy and data security, Mobike cooperated with the government and scientific research institutions to promote shared cycling refinement and intelligent management. Mobike and ofo said that by mining and opening travel data for shared bikes and working with the government, they can significantly improve their operating efficiency and lead the industry into refined operations and mature development.

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ofo: Shanghai was the first to access the platform

ofo said its solution to city management problems caused by sharing bikes, ofo has developed Qidian, the world's largest big data platform for bikes. Qidian is focused on people, bikes and locations, and tracks more than 10 million bikes and 200 million ofo users in 250 cities of 20 countries. Processing the data enables ofo to conduct intelligent scheduling, predict supply and demand and build and intelligent shared cycling system that can respond within one second. Ma Jun, ofo's director in Shanghai, said the Qidian platform allows government departments to clearly see bicycle distribution data, cycling heat maps and other information such as cycling distance in Shanghai. In addition, the government can manage personnel, which is consistent with the existing shared cycling mechanism. This may make joint operation between government and enterprises more efficient, he said. ofo said it would also open its data archives related to traffic, such as bike routes, operation scheduling, thermal tidal figures and demand forecasts. ofo could support urban management departments in the shared cycling operation, intelligent traffic and management needs of urban construction, closely collaborate with the government, and provide practical data for the urban traffic system. Ma said Qidian showed two locations in Pudong District, Shanghai had more demand than others. Accordingly, bike sharing enterprises can put more bikes there. The government can put more public transportation tools in city planning and improve the efficiency of public travel.

Mobike: Work with the government to strengthen the management of shared bicycles

On January 17, Mobike opened its travel big data. After ensuring user privacy and data security, Mobike began to cooperate with the government and scientific research institutions to promote shared cycling refinements and intelligent management, and to play a positive role in city planning, green travel, sustainable transport and other fields. Mobike said each bike is equipped with an independently developed IoT intelligent lock, which integrates a multimode satellite positioning module and mobile Internet communication module. The unit can track and upload bike locations, condition and routes to the cloud. These have laid the foundation for Mobike to build a big data open platform. Xia Yiping, Mobike's co-founder and CTO, said Mobike operates 8 million bicycles in more than 200 cities around the world. Its fleet produces more than 30 TB of travel data every day. An AI big data platform named Rubik provides in-depth analysis and mining of this data. The data plays an important role in intelligent monitoring and scheduling, forecasting of demand, analyzing of locations without public transports and of bus hubs. "After protecting user privacy and information security, Mobike began to explore and open its big data related to bicycle sharing,” said Xia Yiping, “Working with government and research institutes, Mobike is focused on city planning, green travel, sustainable transportation and other public topics. We improve out management through innovative technology, bring more efficient and comfortable travel tools to residents and contribute to scientific urban planning and sustainable development." Xia said.

This article originally appeared in Sina Technology and was translated by Pandaily.