Modeling Bike Share Station Activity: Effects of Nearby Businesses and Jobs on Trips to and from Stations

Bike sharing systems have been established in several cities across North America. An objective of all bike sharing programs is to maximize the number of trips to and from bike share stations. The purpose of this research is to identify correlates of bike station activity, with special emphases on the association of trips to and from bike stations with the number of nearby businesses and jobs. Using data on 2011 trips from Nice Ride stations in Minneapolis-St. Paul, the authors introduce three ordinary least square regression models to evaluate the marginal effects of the presence of businesses on annual total station trips, trip origins and trip destinations. The authors' models include 19 variables in four general categories, including, in addition to the presence of different types of businesses and jobs, sociodemographic, built environment, and transportation infrastructure variables that are used as controls. The result shows the number of trips at Nice Ride stations is positively and significantly associated with food-related destinations near the station and job accessibility but not with general retail establishments. Use of bike share stations also is correlated with race, age, proximity to the central business district, proximity to water, accessibility to trails, and distance to other bike share stations. This research is important for planners, academics, and policymakers because the findings will facilitate the understanding of bike share operations, help planners locate new stations, evaluate the potential of implementing new bike share programs, assess economic activity associated with bike share trips, and minimize costs of operations.

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