Collaborative governance in the sharing economy. A case of free-floating bicycle sharing with visualized analyzation

Abstract

A business model of sharing economy has rapidly developed. It is predicted to profoundly influent the society. However, because imperfect management might ruin its operation and future growth, the sharing economy model is rife with conflicts and paradox in terms of logic, boundary, and influence. Taking the Free-floating bicycle sharing (FFBS) as an example, although it is becoming more and more popular in many big cities, the service has led to many problems, including road congestion, parking disorder, and mismanagement of bicycle information. As a result, its sustainable development is severely affected. In this study, we used FFBS as a case study to investigate the relations among government, companies and users. We interviewed varies stakeholders and discussed their different perspectives of collaborative governance. It showed that the parking location, usage frequency, number of parked bicycles, and bicycle health status could be used as indicators to monitor the service situations. We also identified that the wanton occupancy of public space was the major problem of FFBS. To address these issues, we developed a real-time information management platform with information visualization, aimed to help the government, the company, and the users to gather the bicycle information and coordinate their sharing usage. This platform could promote the sustainability of FFBS system and foster the development of other forms of sharing economy in the future.