Abstract
Major cities—including New York, Paris, and London—have implemented bike-share systems to increase the use of sustainable modes of transportation. In this chapter we discuss the operational challenges of implementing such systems and also provide design recommendations. Critical decisions when implementing bike-share systems are the number of bikes and the number of docking points. For a proposed system, these quantities are determined as a function of the imbalance in demand flow (i.e., of demand asymmetry) in different directions. We show how this asymmetry affects decisions about the number of bikes and docking points and also about the frequency with which bikes should be reallocated from full stations to empty ones. The importance for users of the accessibility to stations and their bike-availability are the key determinants of how many daily trips a system attracts and hence of that system’s optimal design. We describe an empirical study that determines user behavior in a central Parisian bike-share system and then suggest an alternate design which can increase the number of trips by almost 29 % for the same amount of resources in number of bikes based on user behavior parameters that we estimate.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Berry S, Levinsohn J, Pakes A (1995) Automobile prices in market equilibrium. Econometrica 63(4):841–890
Cachon G, Terwiesch C (2009) Matching supply with demand, vol 2. McGraw-Hill, Singapore
Chen H, Yao DD (2001) Fundamentals of queueing networks: performance, asymptotics, and optimization. Springer, New York
Davis P (2006) Spatial competition in retail markets: movie theaters. RAND J Econ 37(4):964–982
Kabra A, Belavina E, Girotra K (2015a) Bike-share systems: accessibility and availability. Chicago Booth Research Paper (15-04)
Kabra A, Belavina E, Girotra K (2015b) Effect of demand asymmetry on the design of bike-sharing systems. Work in Progress
Little JD (1961) A proof for the queuing formula: L = λ w. Oper Res 9(3):383–387
Raviv T, Tzur M, Forma IA (2013) Static repositioning in a bike-sharing system: models and solution approaches. EURO J Transp Logist 2(3):187–229
Schuijbroek J, Hampshire R, van Hoeve WJ (2013) Inventory rebalancing and vehicle routing in bike sharing systems. Under Review. Tepper School of Business Working Paper 2013-E1, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Van Mieghem JA, Rudi N (2002) Newsvendor networks: inventory management and capacity investment with discretionary activities. Manuf Serve Oper Manag 4(4):313–335. doi:10.1287/msom.4.4.313.5728
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kabra, A., Belavina, E., Girotra, K. (2016). Bike-Share Systems. In: Atasu, A. (eds) Environmentally Responsible Supply Chains. Springer Series in Supply Chain Management, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30094-8_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30094-8_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-30092-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-30094-8
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)