On January 30, 2026, the Ministry of Transport released 2025 national urban passenger transport data on its official website. With the exception of rail transit, passenger volumes for both buses and taxis declined, with bus passenger traffic falling by 5.5% nationwide—only Heilongjiang Province saw a slight increase. Despite years of efforts by public transport operators across the country to launch new models such as customized services, online booking, and feeder routes, urban bus services have shown no signs of recovery or stabilization in the urban mobility market.
This signals that the traditional transport planning logic centered on meeting demand growth and optimizing modal split is facing fundamental challenges in today’s deeply marketized and diversified mobility landscape. The transport planning industry may have reached a point where it must reconstruct its understanding of the increasingly complex and dynamic urban mobility market.
The 2025 Central Urban Work Conference clearly stated that China’s urban development has shifted from an incremental to a stock phase. For urban mobility, the era of meeting demand through supply expansion has largely ended. In the stock phase, urban spatial patterns are relatively stable; economic growth has increased residents’ motorized travel demand and individual mobility capacity, while evolving industrial structures have made travel demand patterns more complex.
Driven by mobile internet, diversified market supply capable of precise matching (e.g., ride-hailing, shared bicycles) has emerged, alongside individual motorization represented by private cars and electric bicycles (a form of “non-motorized” transport). These have gradually become the new mainstays of the urban mobility market. The traditional planning approach—measuring demand by trip volume, supply by transport capacity, and prioritizing modes by their efficiency—can no longer adapt to current and future changes in the mobility market.
The unprecedented prosperity on the supply side of the mobility market has greatly improved travel convenience, but it has also created new problems and challenges for all modes.
Public transport has a public service nature, requiring government investment to be efficient and cost-effective; it also has a social welfare attribute, necessitating consideration of costs in the redistribution of public benefits. The diversity of travel options has siphoned passengers from public transport, reducing its economies of scale and operational efficiency. When the cost per passenger trip for public transport in first-tier cities approaches 10 yuan, the industry’s public welfare nature is increasingly challenged.
Clearly, against the backdrop of a flood of new mobility services, the supply model and market positioning of public transport must be adjusted.
In 2025, the new national standard for electric bicycles was introduced, sparking strong market opposition over the 25km/h speed limit and vehicle size specifications. Entering 2026, traffic management authorities in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen began strict enforcement on selected road sections and intersections, deploying acoustic-optical devices and even drones, similar to motor vehicle management. Guangzhou started piloting paid parking for electric bicycles at some metro entrances, aiming to quickly reduce the negative externalities of “non-motorized” motorization.
These measures must consider not only their sustainability and effectiveness but also their impact on overall urban mobility efficiency, as no viable alternatives currently exist for this segment of demand.
Recently, some electric bicycle brands have shifted their core sales to electric motorcycles, which are often used as electric bicycles in areas with lax traffic management—likely creating new traffic problems. As the author has repeatedly emphasized, the motorized travel demand behind electric bicycles is a critical foundation of urban operations; solving traffic efficiency and safety issues requires first addressing transport efficiency and profitability.
Thanks to an abundant and even surplus driver supply, the ride-hailing market has expanded rapidly, leading to falling vehicle rental costs, driver incomes, and per-kilometer fares. Internet platforms have used various technical and marketing tools to balance profitability and bilateral market size, yet a “trilemma” has emerged: platform and rental company revenues, driver incomes, and passenger experience cannot all be optimized simultaneously.
Rental platforms face falling vehicle rents and strained cash flow; drivers suffer from overwork and low hourly wages; passengers opt for low-cost services but complain about lack of air conditioning in summer, smelly vehicles in winter, and poor driver service attitudes.
All stakeholders in the ride-hailing industry are trapped in an involution cycle: incomes are falling while workloads increase, and the social welfare gains from mobile internet-enabled mobility are being eroded by internal competition.
The decline in taxi passenger volumes due to ride-hailing competition has not only reduced driver incomes but also weakened service quality at transport hubs and major events. During holidays, complaints about taxi overcharging, refusal of service, and detours often become media hotspots, eroding taxis’ role as a showcase of urban image. Changing user habits and declining taxi service quality have also reduced the efficiency of street-hailing services in high-density areas, replaced by idle taxi queues that occupy more roadside space.
When traditional mobility metrics such as congestion levels, fares, waiting times, speeds, and travel time reliability are no longer the primary concerns, the equilibrium conditions of the mobility market have become far more complex. The growing penetration of mobile internet technology has significantly improved real-time transparency of mobility service information, enhancing the dynamism of supply-demand matching.
In market competition, the accessibility of different modes within minutes of a travel intention becoming clear is a key factor. At a bus stop, seeing that the next bus is over ten minutes away may prompt a passenger to switch to ride-hailing. During peak hours, many users open multiple ride-hailing apps simultaneously, generating highly concurrent demand data. Upon exiting a metro station, the availability of shared bicycles within tens of meters may determine a traveler’s choice of feeder mode.
Commercial tactics by mobility platforms further amplify market volatility. Real-time in-app ads strengthen platforms’ information advantage in influencing traveler choices; large subsidies during platform competition create short-term modal inertia; and discounted monthly, quarterly, or annual cards increase user stickiness.
Compared to internet platforms, traditional bus and taxi services are at a severe competitive disadvantage. When the industry frames its core purpose as public welfare and last-resort 保障，it struggles to participate in market equilibrium, instead surviving on residual demand left by platforms.
The ideal static equilibrium conditions assumed in traditional transport planning have become obsolete. Planning in the stock phase must adapt to a new normal of real-time, transparent, and highly competitive markets.
Intensified competition in the urban mobility market has driven down prices and improved social welfare in travel, but it has also spawned new negative externalities.
In traditional transport planning theory, traffic congestion and environmental pollution are the primary negative externalities. The classic approach—subsidizing public transport to increase green mobility and reduce congestion—has shaped many planning paradigms. However, today negative externalities extend beyond congestion to threaten the health and sustainability of the mobility market, as well as urban spatial allocation and right-of-way distribution.
Marketization delivers efficiency but also carries risks of market failure and collapse. As a derived demand, travel is a transaction cost for urban socio-economic activities. As marketization deepens, the stability of the mobility market becomes increasingly critical to the normal functioning of cities. With a limited number of mobility platforms and high market concentration among leading players, non-competitive behavior or supply instability by individual operators, or excessive competition triggering market volatility, can directly or indirectly disrupt urban operations.
For example, ofo, once a major shared bicycle player, collapsed, leaving widespread chaos. Local governments have repeatedly issued warnings about ride-hailing operational risks to protect driver livelihoods. Due to economies of scale in mobility services, public transport provided by governments must maintain a certain scale to ensure efficiency and coverage. Facing competition from market platforms, falling passenger volumes and declining efficiency also threaten the stability of public transport supply.
In recent years, temporary suspensions of bus services due to financial difficulties have become common—all new challenges to the healthy and sustainable development of the urban mobility market.
With the emergence of new mobility service models and diversified supply, urban transport infrastructure planning centered on traffic capacity has struggled to adapt to new demand patterns. Travel generates not only through traffic but also last-mile access needs at trip origins and destinations. The rapid growth of these last-mile demands has become a major pressure point on the urban transport environment, yet the standardization and regulation of related facilities lag behind.
In recent years, parking space shortages and disorder for electric bicycles and shared bicycles at metro stations have become a key urban management challenge. Ride-hailing and taxi pick-up/drop-off and waiting operations have encroached on bus right-of-way, while the demand for dedicated ride-hailing pick-up areas has created new pressures at transport hubs.
Electric bicycles may now account for the largest share of modal split in many cities, yet the lack of standardized parking and charging infrastructure has led to multiple fire accidents in recent years.
Ensuring the stability and efficiency of the mobility market requires controlling the boundaries of market scale and efficiency. For example, during the 2025 Shanghai Two Sessions, a deputy proposed capping ride-hailing platform commission rates to safeguard the health of the taxi and ride-hailing market, sparking widespread public debate.
The proposal aimed to both increase driver incomes and reduce labor intensity, while improving service quality and guiding sustainable industry development.
In 2025, the Nanjing Municipal Transportation Bureau included a clause in its draft revision of the Measures for the Administration of Online Car-Hailing in Nanjing requiring that driver hourly incomes not fall below the local minimum wage. In October 2025, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Transport issued the Specifications for Guaranteeing Basic Urban Public Transport Services, defining the scope and requirements for basic public transport services—such as minimum passenger flow intensity for new bus routes, maximum peak-hour loading rate of 80%, and minimum headway and first/last bus times. This set a bottom line for public transport operational efficiency, making Guangdong a national pioneer.
In rail transit, planning and construction approvals for new lines have tightened significantly in recent years, extending from second- and third-tier cities to first-tier cities. Growing attention is being paid to operational losses, and even consulting services for boosting rail transit passenger flow have emerged in the planning industry.
Following the introduction of the new national standard for electric bicycles, sales prices have risen, speed limits have been enforced, and paid parking management has been piloted.
These signs indicate that, under pressure from practical problems, controlling the scale and efficiency of the mobility market has become a core management strategy, whether consciously or not.
The informatization of the mobility market has enabled rapid platform expansion, while excessive competition has led to industry involution. With the growth of data and the rise of AI-driven intelligence, new market regulation and control models are needed—beyond traditional supply-demand matching—to mitigate new negative externalities, much like managing traffic congestion.
In terms of industry regulation, for example, monitoring and evaluating ride-hailing drivers’ working hours and minimum wage levels. New York City controls ride-hailing fleet size by enforcing minimum hourly wages, while Hong Kong directly caps the total number of ride-hailing vehicles in new policies to maintain market stability. For shared two-wheeler platforms, some cities have implemented total quantity controls, scheduling performance rankings, and quota allocations to reduce public space occupation and disorder.
In terms of market regulation, digital and AI technologies can be used to create point/token markets in specific mobility scenarios, optimizing supply competition rules and reducing inefficient investment. For example, Shenzhen Airport’s taxi queuing point system has effectively addressed chronic issues such as refusal of short-haul trips, with similar applications adopted at many transport hubs nationwide.
Beyond regulation and governance, related infrastructure must adapt to the new mobility service market.
Take roadside resources as an example: the surge in demand for diversified mobility services and electric bicycles has created new last-mile spatial needs. The book The High Cost of Free Parking is popular in China’s transport planning community; one of its core ideas—regulating roadside parking to reduce negative externalities from motor vehicle use—offers valuable insights for reallocating and regulating urban last-mile resources today.
For example:
These are critical questions for transport infrastructure spatial planning in the stock phase.
As urban development enters the stock phase, traditional growth-oriented planning and supply-demand matching thinking can no longer adapt to the diversified and highly informatized mobility market.
Facing new challenges, it is necessary to re-examine the binding constraints of the mobility market, establish boundaries for the scale and efficiency of market supply, reshape the spatial allocation and usage rules of existing transport infrastructure, and shift the focus of transport planning and management from meeting demand to achieving a new equilibrium centered on enhancing efficiency.
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