Shanghai Dockless Bike Sharing Program Found to Encourage Bike Travel for Work and Non-Work Trips.
Shanghai, China
Association between innovative dockless bicycle sharing programs and adopting cycling in commuting and non-commuting trips
Summary Information
In urban areas, active transportation methods such as shared bicycles have the potential to encourage non-motorized travel. Dockless shared bicycles, equipped with a mobile-controlled electronic wheel lock, an integrated Global Positioning System (GPS), and a communication module, offer users a seamless travel experience by automatically unlocking the bike for them. Additionally, users can locate and use the nearest dockless shared bicycles and manage payments through a paired smartphone app. This study focuses on quantitatively analyzing the impact of dockless bicycle-sharing programs on altering transportation modes for both commuting and non-commuting trips. In May 2017, the researchers conducted a survey study involving retrospective assessment with 1,180 responses to understand travel modes before and after the implementation of the dockless bicycle sharing program in Shanghai, China launched in April 2016.
METHODOLOGY
In this study, the researchers sampled a total of 1,265 travelers in Shanghai from 12 neighborhoods. The final number of survey responses was 1,180 after filtering out partially completed surveys. The survey had two questions to assess travel behavior before and after the launch of the dockless bicycle sharing in both commuting and non-commuting trips: (i) “How did you travel most of the time before the advent of dockless bicycle sharing?”, (ii) “How do you travel most of the time after the advent of dockless bicycle sharing?”. The options for the survey respondents to choose from included walking, cycling, car, public transit (subway, bus, ferry, or shuttle bus), motorcycles/electric motorcycles, combined public transit with walking (>500 m or >0.3 mi), combined public transit with cycling, work at home or unemployed, and other. In this study, cyclists were defined as participants who traveled by bicycle or those who often combined cycling and public transport.
FINDINGS
- Results showed that, after the launch of the dockless bicycle sharing program, the proportion of cyclists increased from 21.9 percent to 30.9 percent in commuting (an increase of nine percentage points).
- There was an increase from 22.1 percent to 33.6 percent in the proportion of non-commuting trips (11.5 percentage points increase).
