Models for Effective Deployment and Redistribution of Bicycles Within Public Bicycle-Sharing Systems

Jia Shu (), Mabel C. Chou (), Qizhang Liu (), Chung-Piaw Teo () and I-Lin Wang ()
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Jia Shu: Department of Management Science and Engineering, School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210096, China
Mabel C. Chou: Department of Decision Sciences, NUS Business School, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Republic of Singapore
Qizhang Liu: Department of Decision Sciences, NUS Business School, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Republic of Singapore
Chung-Piaw Teo: Department of Decision Sciences, NUS Business School, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Republic of Singapore
I-Lin Wang: Department of Industrial and Information Management, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, China

Operations Research, 2013, vol. 61, issue 6, 1346-1359

Abstract: We develop practical operations research models to support decision making in the design and management of public bicycle-sharing systems. We develop a network flow model with proportionality constraints to estimate the flow of bicycles within the network and the number of trips supported, given an initial allocation of bicycles at each station. We also examine the effectiveness of periodic redistribution of bicycles in the network to support greater flow, and the impact on the number of docks needed.We conduct our numerical analysis using transit data from train operators in Singapore. Given that a substantial proportion of passengers in the train system commute a short distance---more than 16% of passengers alight within two stops from the origin---this forms a latent segment of demand for a bicycle-sharing program. We argue that for a bicycle-sharing system to be most effective for this customer segment, the system must deploy the right number of bicycles at the right places, because this affects the utilization rate of the bicycles and how bicycles circulate within the system. We also identify the appropriate operational environments in which periodic redistribution of bicycles will be most effective for improving system performance.

Keywords: bicycle sharing; proportional network flow; simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (61)

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