Bike-Share Systems: Accessibility and Availability

59 Pages Posted: 26 Jan 2015 Last revised: 26 Sep 2019

See all articles by Ashish Kabra

Ashish Kabra

University of Maryland - Robert H. Smith School of Business

Elena Belavina

Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Karan Girotra

Cornell Tech; Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Date Written: February 8, 2018

Abstract

The cities of Paris, London, Chicago, and New York (among many others) have set up bike-share systems to facilitate the use of bicycles for urban commuting. This paper estimates the impact of two facets of system performance on bike-share ridership: accessibility (how far the user must walk to reach stations) and bike-availability (the likelihood of finding a bicycle). We obtain these estimates from a structural demand model for ridership estimated using data from the Vélib’ system in Paris. We find that every additional meter of walking to a station decreases a user’s likelihood of using a bike from that station by 0.194% (±0.0693%), the reduction is even more significant at higher distances (>300m). These estimates imply that almost 80% of bike-share usage comes from areas within 300m of stations, highlighting the need for dense station networks. We find that a 10% increase in bike-availability would increase ridership by 12.211% (±1.097%), three-fourths of which comes from fewer abandonments, and the rest from increased user interest. We illustrate the use of our estimates in comparing the effect of adding stations or increasing bike-availabilities in different parts of the city, at different times, and in evaluating other proposed improvements.

Suggested Citation

Kabra, Ashish and Belavina, Elena and Girotra, Karan, Bike-Share Systems: Accessibility and Availability (February 8, 2018). Chicago Booth Research Paper No. 15-04, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2555671 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2555671

Ashish Kabra

University of Maryland - Robert H. Smith School of Business ( email )

7621 Mowatt Ln
Apt 1116
College Park, MD 20740
United States
6158779203 (Phone)

Elena Belavina (Contact Author)

Cornell SC Johnson College of Business ( email )

New York, NY 10044
United States

HOME PAGE: http://belavina.com

Karan Girotra

Cornell Tech ( email )

111 8th Avenue #302
New York, NY 10011
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.girotra.com

Cornell SC Johnson College of Business ( email )

Ithaca, NY 14850
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.girotra.com

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