IoT-Enabled Two-Wheeled Vehicles Driving Smart Urban Growth: Insights from the 16th Tsinghua Public Management Forum

On October 17, 2021, the 16th Tsinghua University Public Management High-Level Forum was held under the theme “Modernization of Urban Governance.” Yang Jia, a researcher at Hello Mobility Institute, was invited to speak at the sub‑forum “Technology Innovation and Smart Growth.” His presentation, originally titled “Two‑Wheeled IoT Empowering Smart Urban Growth,” is excerpted here.

Two‑wheeled travel (bicycles and electric bicycles) remains the most common mode of transportation in China, serving billions of trips daily. Historically, the lack of onboard sensors limited data collection, leaving a large knowledge gap for regulation and urban management. With the rapid advancement of IoT and smart‑vehicle technologies, two‑wheelers can now generate massive streams of real‑time data that support safer, more convenient, and greener mobility while meeting the needs of digital city governance.

At the 2nd United Nations Global Sustainable Transport Conference, President Xi Jinping emphasized “ecological priority and green low‑carbon development,” urging the promotion of new‑energy, intelligent, digital, and lightweight transport equipment. In parallel, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and seven other ministries released the “Three‑Year Action Plan for New‑type IoT Infrastructure (2021‑2023),” which aims to establish IoT foundations in major Chinese cities by the end of 2023. The plan defines IoT as a sensing‑and‑communication infrastructure that connects people, machines, and objects, providing perception, transmission, and processing services. One key application area is social governance, where traditional infrastructure (transport, energy, municipal services, health) will be upgraded through pervasive sensing and data sharing, including large‑scale deployment of BeiDou positioning for electric bicycles.

China now has over 300 million electric bicycles, with 2020 sales reaching 47.6 million units and an expected addition of more than 100 million units in the next two years. Many of these vehicles do not meet mandatory national standards and lack intelligent capabilities. Hello Mobility has invested heavily in R&D (11.3 % of revenue in 2020) and employs a large proportion of high‑tech talent. The company operates tens of millions of smart terminals, a central control system, and processes billions of data points daily. This infrastructure enables precise, city‑wide insights such as: daily travel demand, optimal vehicle allocation, integration with public transit, weather‑impact analysis, and accident causation studies. The data also feed back into product design to continuously reduce accident rates.

The IoT‑enabled two‑wheel ecosystem pursues five concrete goals for smart urban growth:

Convenience: Integration of shared e‑bikes with metro and bus networks, demonstrated by a 20‑25 % overlap of Hello’s bike orders with metro trips, boosting overall public‑transport ridership.

Safety: Real‑time monitoring of charging stations and fire‑safety systems, as well as accident‑analysis platforms that inform operational improvements.

Greenness: Alignment with China’s carbon‑peak and carbon‑neutral targets through corporate carbon‑neutral pledges, “Carbon Rider” public‑welfare projects, and promotion of low‑emission travel.

Fairness: Extending shared‑two‑wheel services to suburban, county, and rural areas to ensure equitable mobility access.

Orderliness: Implementing fixed‑point parking, smart patrol systems, and non‑motor‑vehicle regulatory platforms that use electronic tags and geofencing for remote enforcement.

To address five traditional challenges of electric bicycles—fire safety, high accident rates, non‑standard vehicles, low utilization, and chaotic parking—Hello proposes a four‑pronged solution: safer product design and standards, a nationwide “swap‑charging” energy network that separates vehicle and battery, shared‑ownership models to reduce idle stock, and smart‑technology upgrades such as BeiDou positioning and electronic fences for regulated parking.

The two‑wheel IoT platform is still evolving, and Hello continues to explore innovations that enhance product quality, service efficiency, and urban sustainability, inviting broader participation from industry and society.