(Yicai Global) July 13 -- Central China's city of Wuhan has created its own version of the Internet of Thingsto stop residentss'electric bikes from getting stolen.

Wuhan achieved full urban coverage of its Internet of Things network almost six months ago and installed smart chips for 560,000 electric bikes. This has lowered the number of lost bikes by nearly 40 percent from the year before, state-owned Xinhua News Agency reported.

The problem of bike theft was once very serious, Chen Ming, deputy director at the local security bureau said. Early this year, the city installed chips for citizens' vehicles free of charge and now more than 1 million electric bikes have been registered, he added.

The electronic tags require no internet data and instead function through base stations, which alert the police if the tag moves abnormally in comparison to its usual route.

Thanks to these chips, Wuhan police have cracked more than 300 electric bike theft cases, arrested more than 260 criminal suspects, and retrieved more than 700 stolen two-wheelers.

The city is exploring ways to apply the tracking technology to new fields such as city management, patient care, and firefighting.