Bike Rental Station Deployment Planning in Wuhan

Little has been done in China to address what a bike sharing system planning does with the performance of the system. Based on an experimental practice of bike sharing system planning in Wuhan, this paper presents a general planning approach, i.e., overall system-size control, bike rental station grouping and zoning, station size balancing and adjusting accordingly. With bike rental stations classified into bus stops, public/commercial buildings, and stations affiliated to residential areas, recreational facilities, and campuses, the paper investigates the spatial and scale relations between stations in residential areas and other stations, arguing that a station in residential areas should be more or less in size than the ones of bus stops, buildings, and campuses. The paper also includes a planning proposal to deploy 800 bike rental stations in 2009 in Wuhan.