Effect of Bicycle-sharing on Public Transport Accessibility: Application to Chicago Divvy Bicycle-sharing System

Bicycle-sharing programs have become prevalent and popular in many cities around the world, promoting a clean and sustainable modal option to residents and visitors. Chicago, with one of the most developed transit systems in the US, is no exception, and has been growing its bicycle-sharing programs to enhance mobility to greater portions of the city. As bicycle sharing programs have generally developed around and in conjunction with public transportation systems, e.g. near rail transit stations, they contribute to the accessibility of the overall public transportation system. This paper seeks to evaluate the impact of integrating shared bikes on the accessibility of a public transit system, by developing a model of public transit accessibility, and applying to the transit system of Chicago. The model proposed in this paper is a utility-based model in conjunction with choice behavior strategy for a hyperpath network. Transit station data and historical bike sharing data were explored to select frequent origin and destination (OD) pairs and multi-mode stations. Experiments were designed and conducted to measure the accessibility for visitor and commuter trips. Results from experiments show that the bike sharing program has successfully increased the accessibility of public transit in Chicago. The approach provides quantitative evaluation of multi-mode trips and provides insight of stations and routes for bike and ride trips.