The Putuo Mountain scenic area in Zhoushan, an island city in East China's Zhejiang province, now only allows licensed bikes on its roads. [Photo/WeChat account: zjzsrbs]

Putuo Mountain scenic area in Zhoushan, an island city in East China's Zhejiang province, began only allowing licensed bikes on its roads on April 21, local media reported.

In recent years, the scenic area has seen a rapid increase in bikes, as it has become increasingly strict on motor vehicles.

At the end of 2019, there was more than 12,000 bikes in the Putuo Mountain scenic area, mostly in popular high-traffic areas.

Han Xiangyang, director of the general management office of the Putuo Mountain management committee, said that the large number of bikes are not sufficiently managed and take up too much space, and that bikes zooming through the scenic area threaten the safety of visitors.

Therefore, the management committee decided to register all bikes in the scenic area and designate each bike with a unique QR code.

To encourage visitors and workers on the mountain to use public transport, the area's bus manager decided to increase bus frequency and installed an electronic calling system at bus stops to reduce wait times.

Putuo Mountain is a located on a small island in the Zhoushan Archipelago, which consists of 1,390 islands. It covers an area of 12.93 square kilometers and is one of China's Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism. The island has been known by Buddhists as the shrine of Guanyin Bodhisattva since ancient times and is known as a "Buddhist World amidst Sea and Sky".