Most bicycle sharing schemes in China, kingdom of the humble pushbike, are being shunned by commuters whose refusal to revert to two wheels has resulted in the collapse of the biggest project of all.

China’s low take-up contrasts with the success of bike-sharing schemes across the world, especially in European cities including London. According to the Transportation Sustainability Research Centre at the University of California, Berkeley, there are 712 cities operating schemes involving a total of more than 800,000 bikes.

For a country paying the environmental price for a mass switch to cars and electric bikes, a return to two wheelers – seen by former Chinese Communist party leader Mao Zedong as the obvious solution to the then backward nation’s crippling transport problems – again looked wise.