Feasibility Study of Transferring Shared Bicycle Users with Commuting Demand to Flex-Route Transit—A Case Study of Nanjing City, China

Abstract

Shared bicycle users with commuting purposes generally need to take a traditional public transit and then use the shared bicycle to complete the first/last mile transport. While shared bicycle provides convenient travel for travelers, it also brings a series of problems such as disorderly parking and road occupancy. Therefore, exploring the problem of travel mode shift between shared bicycle and public transit is of significance for improving the traffic environment and increasing the sharing rate of public transit. This paper introduces the flex-route transit system and quantitatively analyzes the rationality and feasibility of using flex-route transit to pick up and drop off shared bicycle users with commuting demand from the temporal perspectives. A flex-route transit route design model is established with the objective of minimizing the sum of vehicle driving time cost and passenger time cost, and the time cost models of the shared bicycle commuting system and the flex-route transit system are constructed, compared, and analyzed to explore the feasibility of flex-route transit picking up or dropping off shared bicycle users under different conditions. Through the subsequent sensitivity analysis, the influence of passenger demand density, fixed station spacing, and travel preference attributed to the two systems are analyzed separately. The results demonstrate that the flex-route transit can efficiently complete the picking up or dropping off for shared bicycle users under certain conditions.

A full factorial sensitivity analysis for a capacitated Flex-Route Transit system

“…It shows that if this weight increases, the threshold on the number customers also increases. In [6], the authors consider a maximum time (upper bound) at which a customer can be picked-up: they add time windows constraints and shuttle capacity constraints to the model of [1]. The provided system is then compared with a CPT system in which customers use a shared biking system to get to the closest checkpoint stop to be picked-up.…”

“…The FRT system is designed to provide service in low demand neighborhood, justifying the fact that few papers in the literature consider shuttle capacity constraints. Recently, two papers [6], [8] take into account shuttle capacity of 50 and 10, respectively, when modeling the FRT. As shown in Table II, the level of demand is only assessed in [6] when performing a sensitivity analysis.…”

“…On the other hand, at night walking is often unsafe and few transfer possibilities are available. The fact that inclement weather makes walking to the closest checkpoint difficult is a further factor that makes FRT appealing as testified by its subsequent introduction in Canada and China [2], [3].…”

Layout Model of Bike-Sharing Facilities in the Transfer-Influenced Area of a Subway Station

“…Some scholars also pay attention to the connection between shared bicycle configuration and public transport. Zhang [21] explored the problem of travel-mode shift between shared bicycle and public transit in order to improve the traffic environment and increase the sharing rate of public transit. Some studies also put forward an optimal distribution plan of shared bicycles connecting with the subway line during the morning peak hours from the perspective of low-carbon [22].…”

“…where each target weight coefficient satisfies λ 1 + λ 2 + λ 3 = 1; ϕ i (x) is obtained using the dimensionless method to process the original target functions, that is shown as Equation (21).…”