Lessons from Implementing a Metropolitan Electric Bike Sharing System

Tomasz Bieliński, Łukasz Dopierała, Maciej Tarkowski and Agnieszka Ważna
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Tomasz Bieliński: Faculty of Economics, University of Gdansk, 81-824 Sopot, Poland
Łukasz Dopierała: Faculty of Economics, University of Gdansk, 81-824 Sopot, Poland
Maciej Tarkowski: Faculty of Oceanography and Geography, University of Gdansk, 80-309 Gdańsk, Poland
Agnieszka Ważna: Faculty of Economics, University of Gdansk, 81-824 Sopot, Poland

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 23, 1-21

Abstract: Electrically assisted bicycles are anticipated to become an effective tool to limit not only the use of cars in cities but also their negative impact on health, the environment, and passenger transportation in cities. In this paper, we examine the effects of implementing the first fully electric bike (e-bike) sharing system in the Metropolitan Area of Gda?sk–Gdynia–Sopot in Northern Poland, where no other bike sharing system had been introduced before. The aims of this article were to determine the impact of the new e-bike sharing system on the modal choice of citizens, identify barriers to its usage, and find differences between the usage of the system in the core of the metropolitan area and in the suburbs. We used two primary data sets: the survey data collected using the computer-assisted personal interviewing technique (CAPI technique) and the data automatically acquired from the website that monitored the system activities. We performed the analysis by using nonparametric tests and correspondence analysis. We found no evidence suggesting that e-bike sharing can replace large number of private car trips, but we found it likely to be competitive to carsharing, moped, and taxi services. E-bike sharing competes also with public transportation services, but it is also used as the first/last mile of the transportation supplementing public transport system. The major barrier to using this system in central cities of the metropolitan area was the lack of available public bikes, and possession of private bicycles, whereas for residents of the suburbs, the obstacles were the need to transport children, the high price of the bicycle rental/subscription, and the long distance to the docking stations.

Keywords: electric bike sharing; e-bikes; electromobility development policy; public bicycle system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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