Bike Rental Station Planning and Design in Paris

This paper first draws an outline of a travel demand forecasting procedure used in Paris's bike rental station planning. The procedure is pre-mised on 4 types of zonal land-use data, i.e., population, employment, commercial and public establishments, and capable of estimating average zonal trips, and thus the numbers of bike rental stations and bikes in a station. The paper then discusses strategies, tips, and the impact factors on rental station positioning. Also discussed are rental station deployment patterns, keynotes to deploy rental stations along roadside, on sidewalks, or near street-trees, and rental station requirements for bikes, stand racks, and other amenities. Finally, in light of experiences from Paris, the paper points out that a) The argument merely to deal with the "last kilometer to end a transit trip" for bike sharing system in some cities in China is unfavorable to deploy rental stations in a proper way, b) deployment of a majority of rental stations on sidewalks would induce new traffic problems, and c) it is desirable, within a rental station, to keep the amenities simple, fine-tuned, long-lasting, and less room-taking.