Global Trend: YouBike
- Jun 18, 2019
- 2 min read
In recent years, air pollution has become a social concern all around the world. People think of many ways to solve this problem, but, the situation continues to harm the environment. Fortunately, in Taiwan, our government developed a bicycle lending system, the YouBike.
The system first started on August 30th, 2012, in Taipei City. By using the urban bicycle road network and bicycle rental station service, people were encouraged by the government to use low-pollution and low-energy public bicycles as a short-range way of connecting and transporting bicycles. This reduced the pollution created by private motor vehicles and improved the city's air quality. Taipei City Government and Smile Bicycle jointly launched the Taipei City Public Bicycle Rental System Service Plan, referred to as “YouBike Smile Bike”. Nowadays, the cities including New Taipei, Miaoli, Hsinchu, Changhua, Taoyuan, and Taichung, all have adopted the use of YouBike. But, how does the system works?
First, You will have to register an account with your easy card. There are Automatic servers at every station, this makes the process much more convenient.
The first step in renting the YouBike is to choose one of the bicycles from the station. Then hold your registered easy card, and place on the sensing area beside the YouBike.
When the green light starts to flash and you hear short beeping sounds, the bike is unlocked. You can pick up your easy card and the bike.
Just pull the front of the YouBike out of the lock, then you have completed the pickup. During the first 30 minutes, the users don't have to pay any rent. Instead, it is counted as 20 NT per hour in the first four hours, 40 NT per hour after the first four hours, and 80 NT per hour after the first eight hours.
Returning the YouBike is very easy too. First, park your bike to an empty column with its sensing area flashing blue light. Make sure the tire is placed on the white line drawn on the ground, and match the front of your bike to the lock
Next, insert your bike to the lock. When you hear a click sound, pull your bike back slightly and re-confirm whether it is locked or not.
At the time, you can place your easy card back on the sensing area to deduct the rent. When the light jumps back from blue to green, the returning procedure is completed.
Renting and riding YouBike is not just cheap, healthy, and convenient, but it also helps us heal the world by reducing air pollution. Cars and motorcycles produce exhaust gas, causing many problems, for example, the risk to the respiratory system of the human body, damage to crops' growth, and the most important, accelerating global warming, which destroys habitats for animals that live in the polar regions.
As a result, using YouBike for daily transportation is a smart way to help our planet. I personally really encourage people to use YouBike, to protect our Earth and provide a better environment to live for our next generation.
Comments