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Sustainable Mobility: Public-Shared Bike and Emerging Public Transport Systems

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Transportation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2019) | Viewed by 38386

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Inhi Kim

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton VIC 3800, Australia
Interests: traffic safety; traffic flow theory and characteristics; travel demand and behavior modeling; complex networks; transport planning; traffic signal operation; public transportation planning

Prof. Zhiyuan Liu

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Guest Editor

School of Transportation, Southeast University; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Urban ITS, Jiangsu Province Collaborative Innovation Center of Modern Urban Traffic Technologies, Nanjing 211189, China
Interests: transport network modeling; public transport; big data analytics
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are calling for papers for a Special Issue of the journal Sustainability on research into bike share (public bike) and E-bike transport – rapidly growing modes that are promoting overall non-motorized transport. In the last decade, countries like France and China have built successful docked bike share system (public bike system) substantially driven by their governments. In recent years, dockless bike share systems for shared mobility have also emerged. Initiated in China, this method has expanded to many different countries and changed the way people travel. The number of dockless bike share users in China has grown from 2 million in 2016 to 23 million in 2017 and made itself one of the most significant shared mobilities. This innovation now has spread to overseas countries including the US, UK, and Australia, bringing convenience along with the downside known as fleet “congestion” (casual parking of bikes blocking pedestrian access). While both bike share systems help to substantially increase the overall mode split involving human-powered bicycles, the traditional docked bike share and newer dockless bike share systems reveal a different attitude from governments. They are facing different challenges from policies, operations, and even legislation; while these two bike share systems affect and satisfy users’ demand in different ways. On top of active transport in a sharing economy, many researchers and experts pay much attention to emerging public transportation systems. For example, several car sharing companies operate businesses where people do not own a vehicle but rent it on-demand. So-called “mobility as a service” on-demand vehicles are also replacing traditional fixed-route services. With these emerging innovations and technology, transportation modes must be reshaped to meet future mobility.

We welcome contributions speculating on new mobility with advanced technology that can integrate many different types of public transportation systems. This Special Issue will cover many aspects including data-driven, GIS-based innovative methodologies to steer the system towards achieving targets, policy, governance, legislation, operation, integration of social science disciplines, engineering, case studies, and surveys and review papers from international and local perspectives. Proposed papers for this Special Issue may also cover a broad range of strategies that could promote the healthy and sustainable development of bike share and E-bikes.

Dr. Inhi Kim
Prof. Zhiyuan Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Shared bike
Emerging public transport systems
Maas
Mobility
Active transport

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Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 1549 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Mixed Logit Models for Travelers’ Mode Shifting Considering Bike-Sharing

by Mao Ye, Yajing Chen, Guixin Yang, Bo Wang and Qizhou Hu

Sustainability 2020, 12(5), 2081; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12052081 - 8 Mar 2020

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3661

Abstract

This study quantifies the impact of individual attributes, the built environment, and travel characteristics on the use of bike-sharing and the willingness of shifting to bike-sharing-related travel modes (bike-sharing combined with other public transportation modes such as bus and subway) under different scenarios. The data are from an RP (Revealed Preference) survey and SP (Stated Preference) survey in Nanjing, China. Three mixed logit models are established: an individual attribute–travel characteristics model, a various-factor bike-sharing usage frequency model, and a mixed scenario–transfer willingness model. It is found that age and income are negatively associated with bike-sharing usage; the transfer distance (about 1 km), owning no car, students, and enterprises are positively associated with bike-sharing usage; both weather and travel distance have a significant negative impact on mode shifting. The sesearch conclusions can provide a reference for the formulation of urban transportation policies, the daily operation scheduling, and service optimization of bike-sharing. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mobility: Public-Shared Bike and Emerging Public Transport Systems)

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18 pages, 2165 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Why Don’t People Ride Bicycles in High-Income Developing Countries, and Can Bike-Sharing Be the Solution? The Case of Qatar

by Khaled Shaaban

Sustainability 2020, 12(4), 1693; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041693 - 24 Feb 2020

Cited by 49 | Viewed by 8514

Abstract

Although cycling is increasing in developed regions, such as Europe and North America, high-income developing countries in the Arabian Gulf region still have low cycling activities. Limited research has investigated the barriers to cycling in these countries. In this study, the barriers and motivators in Qatar, a high-income developing country, were investigated. Respondents were asked to report their bicycle usage during the last 12 months. The results indicated that approximately 15% used a bicycle during this period, but only 1.7% bicycled for transportation purposes. The analysis revealed the different barriers to cycling and their relative strengths. The study also compared the perceived challenges of cycling between males and females. The questionnaire results indicated that both groups considered the issues related to the weather conditions, bicycle ownership, lack of paths or connections, and driver behavior as important barriers to cycling. However, the female participants identified clothing, parental consent, and cultural and societal pressure as far more important. When asked about motivators for cycling, the results revealed that improving intersections, adding additional infrastructure facilities, planting trees for shading, affordable bicycles, and campaigns targeting potential cyclists and drivers are needed in order to increase cycling. To better understand how bike-sharing will be perceived if implemented in the future, the feedback was obtained from the participants, and their opinions indicated that there is a great deal of acceptance for this type of service. The outcome of this study can be of benefit to public agencies in developing countries that have the goal of increasing cycling use among their populations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mobility: Public-Shared Bike and Emerging Public Transport Systems)

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14 pages, 4090 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spatio-Temporal Usage Patterns of Dockless Bike-Sharing Service Linking to a Metro Station: A Case Study in Shanghai, China

by Qiang Yan, Kun Gao, Lijun Sun and Minhua Shao

Sustainability 2020, 12(3), 851; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12030851 - 23 Jan 2020

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3432

Abstract

The dockless bike-sharing (DLBS) system serves as a link between metro stations and travelers’ destinations (or originations). This paper aims to uncover spatio-temporal usage patterns of dockless bike-sharing service linking to metro stations for supporting scientific planning and management of the dockless bike-sharing system. A powerful visualization tool was used to analyze the differences in usage patterns in workdays and weekends. The travel distance distributions of using dockless bike-sharing near metro stations were investigated to shed light on the service area of the dockless bike-sharing system. Agglomerative hierarchical clustering was applied to analyze differences in usage patterns of metro stations located in different areas. The results show that the usage patterns of dockless bike-sharing on weekends are different from those on workdays. The average travel distance using the dockless bike-sharing system at weekends is significantly larger than that of workdays. The travel distance distribution could be nicely fitted by the Fréchet distribution of the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution family. The usage characteristics of shared bikes are correlated with land use and population density around metro stations. No matter in urban or suburban areas, there is a great demand for bike-sharing in densely populated areas with intensive land development, such as university towns in suburban areas. This study improves the understandings regarding the usage patterns of the DLBS system serving as a link between the final destinations (or originations) and metro stations. The results can be helpful to the operation and demand management of DLBS. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mobility: Public-Shared Bike and Emerging Public Transport Systems)

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9 pages, 221 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessment of the DRT System Based on an Optimal Routing Strategy

by Jooyoung Kim

Sustainability 2020, 12(2), 714; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12020714 - 19 Jan 2020

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3573

Abstract

Demand responsive transport (DRT) is operated according to flexible routes, dispatch intervals, and dynamic demand, is attracting a lot of attention. The biggest characteristic of the DRT service is that the vehicle routes and schedules are operated optimally based on real-time travel requests of using passengers without fixed operating schedules. This study analyzed the feasibility of implementing the DRT service by analyzing the benefits for the users and cost of the operator from the effects of increasing public transportation use and providing personalized mobility service based on DRT implementation by the introduction of DRT using multi-agent transport simulation (MATSim). Through the simulation, the DRT is expected to provide convenient, fast, and cost-effective mobility services to customers; provide an optimal vehicle scale to providers; and, ultimately, achieve a safe and efficient transportation system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mobility: Public-Shared Bike and Emerging Public Transport Systems)

17 pages, 2134 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Analytical Model for the Many-to-One Demand Responsive Transit Systems

by Di Huang, Weiping Tong, Lumeng Wang and Xun Yang

Sustainability 2020, 12(1), 298; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12010298 - 30 Dec 2019

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 3388

Abstract

The demand-responsive transit (DRT) service is an emerging and flexible transit mode to enhance the mobility of the urban transit system by providing personalized services. Passengers can make advanced appointments through smartphone applications. In this paper, an analytical model is proposed for the many-to-one DRT system. The agency and user costs are approximated by closed-form expressions. The agency cost, which is also the operation cost, is approximated by the continuum approximation technique. A nearest-neighbor routing strategy is applied, whereby the vehicle always collects the nearest passenger waiting in the system. The Vickrey queueing theory is adopted as the basis for approximating each component of the user cost, which is composed of the out-of-vehicle and in-vehicle waiting times and schedule deviations, which also depend on the service quality of the DRT system. The results of the numerical experiment show that (1) the agency and user costs are influenced significantly by the demand density, and (2) the DRT operator cannot further decrease the operating cost by solely deploying larger vehicles. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mobility: Public-Shared Bike and Emerging Public Transport Systems)

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21 pages, 1753 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Random Forest Model for Travel Mode Identification Based on Mobile Phone Signaling Data

by Zhenbo Lu, Zhen Long, Jingxin Xia and Chengchuan An

Sustainability 2019, 11(21), 5950; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11215950 - 25 Oct 2019

Cited by 26 | Viewed by 4265

Abstract

Identifying and detecting the travel mode and pattern of individual travelers is an important problem in transportation planning and policy making. Mobile-phone Signaling Data (MSD) have numerous advantages, including wide coverage and low acquisition cost, data stability and reliability, and strong real-time performance. However, due to their noisy and temporally irregular nature, extracting mobility information such as transport modes from these data is particularly challenging. This paper establishes a travel mode identification model based on the MSD combined with residents’ travel survey data, Geographic Information System (GIS) data, and navigation data. Using the data obtained from Kunshan, China in 2017, enriched with variables on the travel mode identification, the model achieved a high accuracy of 90%. The accuracy is satisfactory for all of the transport modes other than buses. Furthermore, among the explanatory variables such as the built environment factors (e.g., the coverage rate of a bus stop) are in general more significant, in contrast with other attributes. This indicates that the land use functions are more influential on the travel mode selection as well as the level of travel demand. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mobility: Public-Shared Bike and Emerging Public Transport Systems)

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19 pages, 1363 KiB

Open AccessArticle

College Students’ Shared Bicycle Use Behavior Based on the NL Model and Factor Analysis

by Shuhong Ma, Yechao Zhou, Zhoulin Yu and Yan Zhang

Sustainability 2019, 11(17), 4538; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11174538 - 21 Aug 2019

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3073

Abstract

The rise and rapid development of bicycle sharing brings great convenience to residents’ travel and transfer, and also has a profound impact on the travel structure of cities. As college students make up a major share of shared bicycle users, it is necessary to analyze the factors that influence their travel mode and riding frequency choice and to explore how these factors affect their riding behavior. To analyze the bicycle riding characteristics of college students, this paper processes many factors with unknown correlations by using a factor analysis method based on revealed preference (RP) questionnaire data. Then, taking the significant common factors as explanatory variables, a two-layer nested logit (NL) model combining riding frequency and travel mode is established to study college students’ riding behavior. The results suggest that the comprehensive hit rate of the upper and lower levels of the model (riding frequency and travel mode) are, respectively, 76.8% and 83.7%, and the two-layer NL model is applicable. It is also shown that environmental factors (“cheap,” “mixed traffic,” “signal lights at intersection,” and so on) have a significant impact on the choice of travel mode and riding frequency. Also, improving the level of bicycle service can increase the shift from walking to riding. Such findings are meaningful for policy-makers, planners, and others in formulating operational management strategies and policies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mobility: Public-Shared Bike and Emerging Public Transport Systems)

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14 pages, 1410 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Winter Sabotage: The Three-Way Interactive Effect of Gender, Age, and Season on Public Bikesharing Usage

by Jinyi Zhou, Changyuan Jing, Xiangjun Hong and Tian Wu

Sustainability 2019, 11(11), 3217; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113217 - 10 Jun 2019

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3252

Abstract

Public bikesharing is an environmentally friendly transportation mode that can remedy the urban “last mile” problem to some extents. Prior studies have investigated many predictors of the public bikesharing usage. For example, researchers find that gender, age, and physical conditions are significantly related to the public bikesharing usage. However, few studies have tested the characteristics of each ride and no integrative theoretical framework has been provided to explain these findings. In the current study, based on the conservation of resource theory, we suggest that the reason why these factors can predict public bikesharing usage is people’s inner needs of resource conservation. Based on this theoretical framework, we propose that: first, gender, age, and season will have direct impacts on public bikesharing usage (i.e., distance and user type); second, gender, age, and season will interactively predict public bikesharing usage as well. A relatively large sample with 1,383,773 rides in 2018 from New York City is used to test our hypotheses. The results indicate that old females indeed use public bicycle less intensively in the winter than young males do in other seasons and thus support the three-way interaction effect. Implications for the emerging public transport systems and limitations of this study are also discussed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mobility: Public-Shared Bike and Emerging Public Transport Systems)

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24 pages, 1436 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Customer Incentive Rebalancing Plan in Free-Float Bike-Sharing System with Limited Information

by Ruijing Wu, Shaoxuan Liu and Zhenyang Shi

Sustainability 2019, 11(11), 3088; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113088 - 31 May 2019

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 3752

Abstract

Free-float bike-sharing (FFBS) systems have increased in popularity as a sustainable travel mode in recent years, especially in the urban areas of China. Despite the convenience such systems offer to customers, it is not easy to maintain an effective balance in the distribution of bikes. This study considers the dynamic rebalancing problem for FFBS systems, whereby user-based tactics are employed by incentivizing users to perform repositioning activities. Motivated by the fact that the problem is frequently faced by FFBS system operators entering a new market with limited information on travel demand, we adopt the ranking and selection approach to select the optimal incentive plan. We describe the system dynamics in detail, and formulate a profit maximization problem with a constraint on customer service level. Through numerical studies, we first establish that our procedure can select the optimal incentive plan in a wide range of scenarios. Second, under our incentive plan, the profit and service level can be improved significantly compared with the scenario without incentive provision. Third, in most cases, our procedure can achieve the optimal solution with a reasonable sample size. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mobility: Public-Shared Bike and Emerging Public Transport Systems)

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