Dockless bike sharing systems, enable by now nearly ubiquitous access to smartphones and other information technologies (e.g. GPS), have become increasingly common in cities around the world. These bike sharing systems may increase cycling for both leisure and practical purposes and allow people to travel greater distance to services like public transit. However, the net benefits of these systems are not entirely clear currently.

METHODS

To help fill this gap in understanding and assess the net impacts of these IT enabled dockless systems, researchers at Utrecht University in Utrecht, the Netherlands conducted a meta-study on dockless bike share research.

To conduct their meta-study the research team reviewed results from English language dockless bike share papers. Key terms used to search Google Scholar and other databases included "bike-sharing", "bikeshare" and "dockless shared bike" among other. The research team than evaluated the results of these studies and summarized their results.