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Shanghai-based Mobike urban bike sharing service has expanded into cities across China, and into Singapore, via the popular messaging app WeChat. Using a miniapp located in the Wallet section of WeChat, users can now quickly and easily reserve and pay for a bike without having to launch another application. A reservation is held for 15 minutes, and cyclists unlock the bike using their smartphone.

WeChat users are able to use funds in that application’s wallet to pay for Mobike, as well as paying via the Mobike app itself. Mobike provides incentives in the form of in-app credits for good use of the bikes, including parking in correct and convenient locations, reporting breakages and inviting others to join the service. With more than one million bicycles available at docking stations across the country’s largest cities, Mobikes are almost always easy to find and park.

Transportation sharing networks are springing up almost everywhere. In August 2016, Springwise covered the launch of Mobike, billing the company as the Uber for bikesharing because cyclists can return the bikes to any docking station. In Berlin, an electric smart scooter ride sharing service is further expanding the concept and even includes rentable helmets stored in the scooter’s seat. How else could sustainable transport be made even more accessible?

Update: Mobike stopped its service and was fully integrated into Meituan, being renamed ‘Meituan Bike’, in 2020. Discover more here.