Quantifying economic benefits from free-floating bike-sharing systems: A trip-level inference approach and city-scale analysis

Abstract Despite many qualitative discussions about the benefits of free-floating bike-sharing systems (FFBS), high-resolution and quantitative assessments about the economic benefits of FFBS for users are absent. This study proposes an innovative trip-level inference approach for quantifying the economic benefits of FFBS, leveraging massive FFBS transaction data, the emerging multimodal routing Application Programming Interface from online navigators and travel choice modeling. The proposed approach is able to analyze the economic benefit for every single bike-sharing trip and investigate the spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the economic benefits from FFBS. An empirical analysis in Shanghai is conducted using the proposed approach. The estimated saved travel time, cost, and economic benefit due to using FFBS per trip are estimated to be 9.95 min, 3.64 CNY, and 8.68 CNY-eq, respectively. The annual saved travel time, cost, and economic benefits from FFBS in Shanghai are estimated to be 17.665 billion min, 6.463 billion CNY, and 15.410 billion CNY-eq, respectively. The relationships between economic benefits from FFBS and built environment factors in different urban contexts are quantitatively examined using Multiple Linear Regression to explain the spatial heterogeneity in the economic benefits of FFBS. The outcomes provide a useful tool for evaluating the benefits of shared mobility systems, insights into the users’ economic benefit from using FFBS from per-trip, aggregated and spatial perspective, as well as its influencing factors. The results could efficiently support the scientific planning, operation and policy making concerning FFBS in different urban contexts.