Taiwan Trend: UBike

UBike is a pubic bicycle sharing service offer by the Taipei city Department of Transportation in a BOT collaboration with local manufacturer Giant Bicycles.

According to the company, each of the system’s bikes costs about NT$10,000 (US$330) because they are designed to withstand frequent use. The bicycles are built to be used 13 times a day on average, much more often than the twice daily use that most other bicycles average. Each bicycle has an RFID tag for vehicle tracking and theft prevention.

Giant was established in 1972 in Dajia, Taichung County (now part of Taichung City), by King Liu and several friends. A major breakthrough came in 1977 when Giant’s chief executive, Tony Lo, negotiated a deal with Schwinn to begin manufacturing bikes as an OEM, manufacturing bicycles to be sold exclusively under other brand names as a private label. As bike sales increased in the U.S., and after workers at the Schwinn plant in Chicago went on strike in 1980, Giant became a key supplier, making more than two-thirds of Schwinn bikes by the mid-1980s, representing 75% of Giant’s sales. When Schwinn decided to find a new source and in 1987 signed a contract with the China Bicycle Company to produce bikes in Shenzhen, Giant, under new president Bill Austin (formerly vice-president marketing at Schwinn), established its own brand of bicycles to compete in the rapidly expanding $200-and-above price range. In 1984, Giant also set up a joint venture, "Giant Europe," with Andries Gaastra of Dutch bicycle manufacturer Koga-Miyata. In 1992, Gaastra sold his shares back, and Giant became a full shareholder of Giant Europe.

By 2018, Giant had sales in over 50 countries, in more than 12,000 retail stores. Its total annual sales in 2017 reached 6.6 million bicycles with revenue of US$1.9 billion.

During may 26 2016, service stations in the bike system are available in Taipei City, New Taipei City, Taoyuan City, Hsinchu City, Taichung City, Changhua County, and Miaoli County.

RFID uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. The tags contain electronically stored information. Passive tags collect energy from a nearby RFID reader's interrogating radio waves.

Since RFID tags can be attached to cash, clothing, and possessions, or implanted in animals and people, the possibility of reading personally-linked information without consent has raised serious privacy concerns.These concerns resulted in standard specifications development addressing privacy and security issues.

In my own opinion I think the reason why YouBike is so popular in Taiwan is because, sometimes if you want to hang out with friends at the restaurant near by your house, but you don't want to walk, the UBike is the best choice. One advantage about the YouBike is there are many places that you can return it back, for example: MRT station. Also the second advantage is, it is cheap, so it also attracts a lot of student to use it. It would be great if bicycle have their own road, it is safer for consumer and decreases the chance to get in a car accident. I personally will start using Ubike more often in the future. How about you?