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The creation of sustainable urban communities is contingent upon the establishment of a sustainable, efficient, and fast transportation system. Bicycle sharing systems (BSS) are one of the most sustainable and inclusive ways of transportation in cities. An important question is how to increase BSS ridership and whether it can effectively replace cars in cities, hence contributing to achieving the 11th Sustainable Development Goal and creating sustainable urban communities. This paper aims to contribute to this stream of research by investigating the effect of fuel prices on BSS ridership. We exploit a natural experiment from Budapest, Hungary, where fuel prices were capped between November 15, 2021, and December 6, 2022. Once the price cap was suddenly eliminated, fuel prices increased by around one-third immediately leading to a very substantial and rarely observable one-time price increase. The difference-in-difference regression results indicate a 2–6% increase in BSS ridership after the elimination of the fuel price cap. The geographical pattern of the change shows that BSS usage mainly increased in the outer part of the city; however, some areas observed a decline. The regression results are also reinforced by survey findings. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for effective urban planning and transportation policymaking.

Recent strategies to improve the performance of the cycling mode of transport are based on infrastructural, behavioral, and multimodal measures, which are related to the concept of bikeability. A literature review on “bikeability indexes” was conducted focusing on indicators, using a four-step systematic process. Fourteen studies were included for the final analysis and provided 138 indicators, 17 criteria, and four domains. The exploratory analysis evidenced limited application of indicators related to pollution, scarce use of indicators related to bicycle sharing systems (BSS), absence of indicators related to electric bicycles, lack of indicators related to digital solutions, and the need of a calibration and validation process for bikeability indexes. Considering the changes and opportunities created by emerging innovations (namely BSS and electric bicycles) and the health trade-off related to pollution reduction, this research reveals that the current bikeability indexes do not fully address the real potential of a cycle network, limiting its use as a comprehensive tool for the promotion of sustainable mobility.

The electric bicycle-sharing system (EBSS) is the fourth-generation urban shared bicycle travel system, which effectively improves the travel efficiency of urban residents and solve the problem of urban congestion. This study attempts to use an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) method to study the acceptance of EBSSs. We had introduced four potential variables, including perceived pleasure (PP), perceived environmental value (PEV), perceived cost (PC), and perceived reliability (PR), into the classic TAM to form a new EBSS-TAM. Data were obtained by using a Likert scale questionnaire from 399 citizens in China. Partial least-squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with reflective constructs was employed as the analysis method. The results showed that: (1) the EBSS-TAM can explain user behaviors regarding the use of EBSSs. PP has a positive impact on behavior attitude (BA) while having no impact on behavior intention (BI). PEV has no impact on BA and BI. PC has a negative impact on BA and has no impact on BI. PR has a positive impact on BA while having no impact on BI. Perceived ease of use (PEU) has a positive impact on PP and PEV. (2) Younger users (under 35 years old) are more likely to change from liking CBSSs to using EBSSs than older users are. Male users are more satisfied with EBSSs because of their ease of use. The users who never used CBSSs are more likely to perceive the environmental protection value of EBSSs. Some managerial implications were proposed for the EBSSs.

Bike-sharing is widely recognized as an eco-friendly mode of transportation and seen as one of the solutions to the problem of air pollution and congestion. As there is little research exploring the performance of bicycle-sharing systems (BSS), many municipal authorities invest in their development without knowledge of their effectiveness. Therefore, the aim of this article is to identify factors that correlate with BSS performance. Data related to BSS and urban characteristics were collected for the 56 cities in Poland, which is the population of BSS systems in this country. The Ordinary Least Square regression model was used to estimate the model. Additionally, to support our findings, a survey of 3631 cyclists was conducted. Our main findings show that BSS performance was positively related to cities’ population, tourism, number of bike stations per capita, congestion, bicycle pathways’ length and higher temperature, and negatively related to precipitation. We have also found that one BSS operator was more effective compared to the others.

Bicycle sharing systems (BSSs) have established a new shared-economy mobility model. After a rapid growth they are evolving into a fully-functional mobile sensor platform for cities. The viability of BSSs is floored by their operational costs, mainly due to rebalancing operations. Rebalancing implies transporting bicycles to and from docking stations in order to guarantee the service. Rebalancing performs clustering to group docking stations by behaviour and proximity. In this paper we propose a Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering based on an Ultra-Light Edge Computing Algorithm (HAC-ULECA). We eliminate the proximity and let Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering (HAC) focus on behaviour. Behaviour is represented by ULECA as an activity profile based on the net flow of arrivals and departures in a docking station. This drastically reduces the computing requirements which allows ULECA to run as an edge computing functionality embedded into the physical layer of the Internet of Shared Bikes (IoSB) architecture. We have applied HAC-ULECA to real data from BiciMAD, the public BSS in Madrid (Spain). Our results, presented as dendograms, graphs, geographical maps, and colour maps, show that HAC-ULECA is capable of separating behaviour profiles related to business and residential areas and extracting meaningful spatio-temporal information about the BSS and the city’s mobility.

The purpose of study was to find out how electric bikes are perceived in Poland, a country with a high level of motorisation and a low cycling culture. A key question was to investigate whether differences in perceptions between traditional (unassisted) and electrically assisted bicycles could bring about greater interest in bicycle transport. The analysis was based on the results of a CAWI survey analysing the perception of the electric bicycle in comparison with the traditional bicycle and the car. Its undoubted advantages are marginalised (only 14% of respondents considered it more practical). The position of the electric bicycle seemed to increase in the opinion of the surveyed only when used by elderly people with poorer fitness, as something that can encourage them to cycle. In general evaluations, it was the traditional bicycle that was seen as better for health. The presented results may serve as a signal that electric bicycles need more promotion in Poland, especially in terms of the benefits of using this mode of transport and the advantages over conventional bikes. The electric bicycle, due to its still low popularity in Poland, may be treated as a certain novelty, which is approached with some distrust and reserve.

We consider a transportation problem arising in public bicycle sharing systems: To avoid rental stations to run entirely empty or full, a fleet of vehicles continuously performs tours moving bikes among stations. In the static problem variant considered in this paper, we are given initial and target fill levels for all stations, and the goal is primarily to find vehicle tours including corresponding loading instructions in order to minimize the deviations from the target fill levels. As secondary objectives we are further interested in minimizing the tours’ total duration and the overall number of loading actions. For this purpose we first propose a fast greedy construction heuristic and extend it to a PILOT method that evaluates each candidate station considered for addition to the current partial tour in a refined way by looking forward via a recursive call. Next we describe a Variable Neighborhood Descent (VND) that exploits a set of specifically designed neighborhood structures in a deterministic way to locally improve the solutions. While the VND is processing the search space of candidate routes to determine the stops for vehicles at unbalanced rental stations, the number of bikes to be loaded or unloaded at each stop is derived by an efficient method. Four alternatives are considered for this embedded procedure based on a greedy heuristic, two variants of maximum flow calculations, and linear programming. Last but not least, we investigate a general Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) and variants of a Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP) for further diversification and extended runs. Rigorous experiments using benchmark instances derived from a real-world scenario in Vienna with up to 700 stations document the performance of the suggested approaches and individual pros and cons. While the VNS yields the best results on instances of moderate size, a PILOT/GRASP hybrid turns out to be superior on very large instances. If solutions are required in short time, the construction heuristic or PILOT method optionally followed by VND still yield reasonable results.

PurposeProduct-service systems (PSS) are regarded as highly sustainable solutions. However, studies identifying and comparing the sustainable potential of product-service offerings by considering the three sustainability dimensions are still scarce. This paper aims to benchmark and analyse the sustainable potential of a use-oriented PSS, showing the influence of the context of implementation on the sustainable potential of the solutions.Design/methodology/approachBy adopting a competitive benchmarking approach, six bicycle-sharing systems from different countries were selected for analysis. The main sustainability-related aspects in use-oriented PSS (the systems investigated) were identified through a literature review. Multiple secondary sources were used to collect data about the analysed PSS. A qualitative analysis was conducted through triangulation of the sources to identify and compare the systems by considering the selected sustainability aspects.FindingsThe main results show that use-oriented PSS provide a range of economic, social, and environmental benefits, confirming the sustainable potential of such solutions. Several similarities between the systems have been identified, along with some differences, especially regarding their integration with other transport systems and the use of renewable energy, which can affect users' acceptance, operation efficacy, and overall sustainable potential of the solutions.Practical implicationsThis study identifies best practices that can be considered by other bike-sharing businesses to improve their sustainability potential.Originality/valueThis study identifies and explores the sustainable potential of bicycle-sharing solutions using a benchmark approach. It augments existing empirical knowledge on sustainable PSS and business models by revealing best practices, including the context that may enhance the sustainability potential of the solutions regarding environmental, economic, and social benefits.

In recent years, the widespread introduction of bike-sharing systems in China has had a profound impact on the daily lives of Chinese citizens and the development of the urban transport system. This article attempts to analyse the impact of this phenomenon on sustainability. The gradual improvement of related monitoring measures has facilitated the maturation of the bike-sharing industry from the initial stage of uncontrolled growth to the current stage of standardised management. By tracing the global development of bike-sharing systems with a special focus on China, this study sheds light on the platformisation of bicycles and their multiple impacts on technical, environmental, cultural, economic and social sustainability. Furthermore, this study provides a comprehensive analysis of the transformation of bicycles in China and highlights the diverse impacts of platform-based bike sharing on various facets of Chinese society. The development of different bike-sharing systems in China is a unique and crucial case to interpret the current situation of bike sharing and imagine future scenarios. In contrast to the prevailing and uniform approach derived from the experiences of Northern European countries, the massive and widespread experimentation with different bike-sharing schemes in China reveals not only potentials and aspects of sustainability, innovation, and urban and social regeneration, but also some hidden shadows similar to those in small-scale contexts such as Northern Europe. Furthermore, this study emphasises the crucial role of sustainable development principles in addressing the urban challenges specific to China.

A highly debatable issue is whether or not a paradigm shift toward the sharing economy could help to address the economic, social and environmental challenges of our time. This article contributes to the academic discussion by exploring the types of value created by sharing organisations and the strategies they use to institutionalise themselves in relation to powerful institutions. The study applies two analytical frameworks, based on value creation and institutional strategies, to three empirical case studies of bicycle sharing systems (BSS) in Barcelona. Rich data was collected from a variety of primary and secondary sources, including a field visit to Barcelona, interviews with representatives of the three bicycle sharing systems, observations and literature analysis. We found that the environmental value these organisations create is closely interlinked with the social value they produce and that these values outweigh negative impacts of their operations. All case organisations employ regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive strategies for their institutionalisation but are also subject to powerful institutions beyond their individual control. We recommend that entrepreneurs, city officials, the public and other stakeholders engage in collaborative and open development processes to shape the emerging sharing economy alongside the institutional work of sharing organisations.