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Since bike sharing swept major cities in China in 2016, parking bikes in hidden areas and vehicle damages have occurred frequently. A group of volunteers self-named "hunters," is using their efforts to try to protect bike sharing.

Mobike parked at the Power Station of Art in Shanghai. [Photo provided to China.org.cn]

In April 2016, Mobike, a bike-sharing startup was launched in major cities in China. To make bike sharing more convenient, Mobikes are not allowed to be parked in hidden areas such as residences or basements.

Volunteers call the process of reporting the irregular bike usage as hunting. If a hunter sees that a Mobike user parked the bikes in hidden areas, the hunters locate the vehicles via an integrated GPS and return these bikes to proper locations. Users who have changed the locks or equipped the bike with children's safety seats for private use will be recorded and get a report in the Mobike app. Once the report is confirmed, the user's account will receive a 20-point deduction. According to rules for Mobike users, accounts under 80 points will be charged 100 yuan per half hour instead of the normal fee of 1 yuan per half hour. To some extent, they will be temporarily prohibited from using Mobikes.

The hunters have set up 22 groups nationwide and communicate through Wechat. The groups,with less than 50 hunters, consist of people from all walks of life.

Without any form of payment, who would bother to do that, you might say. Zhuang Ji, marketing manager of the Power Station of Art in Shanghai, has many reasons behind why he became the first hunter.

Transportation has been a headache for Zhuang since the Power Station of Art moved to an area of urban sprawl in Shanghai, which is 1.5 km from the nearest subway station. To solve this problem, he did a lot of research while visiting art galleries in Paris and New York. When Mobike was launched, he was more than happy to tell his colleagues and visitors. Mobike is just what he has been looking for. He even spent 10 yuan everyday looking for bikes and bringing them to his museum for people to use. He also contacted Mobike to ask for more vehicles to be launched in that area.

Zhuang never thought of irregular use when he found a Mobike with the QR codes torn off. "I was very angry," said Zhuang. "I have been doing my part to help more people share bikes, but someone is doing the opposite." Therefore, he made a decision to seek out and recover more irregularly parked bikes. He found five that day. Since then, he started to look for irregular use of Mobikes in his spare time. He found that sometimes the vehicles are parked out of specified areas and sometimes the locks were changed.

Things did not go well in the beginning. Zhuang located Mobikes by GPS parked in residential areas, but the security guard did not let him in. "I have no other option than to call the police," said Zhuang. "After a few incidents, the security guards learned the rule to keep Mobikes out of residential areas."

"What I am doing is just a drop in the ocean, but every one of us has a responsibility to smooth interpersonal relationships and help to make our lives better." Zhuang said. "It's not reporting these irregular bike usages that makes us happy, but the sound and sustainable bike-sharing."

"Think about the next person who will use the Mobike," Zhuang said, adding that this is the first principal of sharing bikes. "I have no expectation that everybody acts according to the rules, but I do hope that everybody can take part in hunting."

"China has seen rapid mobile Internet development in recent years. I feel proud of this invention," he said. He believes that Mobike is a gift that China brings to the world.

Mobike has shown interest and recognition for the hunters' work. Zhuang has suggested that the company should hire paid hunters.

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