Modelling Bicycle Availability In Bicycle Sharing Systems: A Case Study From Montreal

Keywords

Bicycle availability; Bikesharing; BIXI; Montreal; Panel generalized ordered logit model

Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on Bicycle Sharing Systems (BSS) by examining bicycle availability at a station as a direct metric of analysis. The main contribution of the current research effort is to develop a behaviorally quantitative model that accommodates for the influence of temporal, meteorological, bicycle infrastructure, built environment and land-use attributes on bicycle availability. An ordered regression model - panel mixed generalized ordered logit model – for hourly bicycle availability is estimated to accommodate for exogenous variables and station level unobserved factors. The model estimation is undertaken using Montreal BIXI data from the summer of 2012. From the results, we observe that BIXI is used more in the afternoon than in the morning, dense areas tend to be associated with lower availability levels, and interactions of time of day with land use impact availability. The estimated model is validated using a hold-out sample. The results clearly highlight the satisfactory performance of the proposed framework. The model developed can be employed by BSS operators to arrive at hourly system state predictions and used for rebalancing operations. To illustrate its applicability, an availability prediction exercise is also undertaken.

Publication Date

11-1-2018

Publication Title

Sustainable Cities and Society

Volume

43

Number of Pages

32-40

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2018.08.018

Socpus ID

85051973801 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85051973801

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