Fifth Generation of Bike-Sharing Systems – Examples of Poland and China

Abstract

The article is focused on sustainable transport development solutions in cities, such as bike-sharing systems. We discuss the main principles of bike-sharing, its generations, types, and benefits to system users and entire urban transport systems. The aim of the article is to present a comparison of bikesharing systems found in Polish and Chinese cities. The authors also consider new market practices, which can be implemented when introducing or improving current bike-sharing systems.

Bikeability and Emerging Phenomena in Cycling: Exploratory Analysis and Review

“…According to the technology and infrastructure developments in BSS, the different generations of BSS, i.e., the principal physical and operational characteristics, must also be integrated in new bikeability indexes. In this context, it can be highlighted that the fifth BSS generation that is characterized by free-float (dockless) systems has to deal with new performance issues like the rebalancing operation of bicycles, i.e., frequency and intensity of bicycle removal or refill operations at stations, which is strongly related to the production and attraction of trips due to infrastructure and land use contexts [84], as well as parking issues associated with the impact mitigation of the parking of bicycles in undesired places [85], which would generate a set of indicators related to the quality of service provided by the system and consequently to bikeability. Furthermore, a broader set of BSS performance indicators could also be considered in new bikeability indexes, such as the number of users, costs, e.g., bike-sharing compared to public transportation, market practices among BSS operators, or parking [61].…”

Social Cycling: Critical Mass Through a Mobile App

“…Common use cases are the collective creation of maps, route planning (Gavin et al, 2011) and sharing of favorite routes, data gathering about many different aspects of bike trips, such as speed, distance (Oliveira and Afonso, 2015;Porter and Schwartz, 2018), even rider heart-rate and other indicators of exertion (Walmink et al, 2014). Some are created specifically for research purposes (Mattingly et al, 2017;Boss et al, 2018), many are commercially motivated, e.g., bike sharing programs (Chen et al, 2018). There are several apps for cyclists which -like ours-mean to encourage cycling and foster community creation (Navarro et al, 2013;Walmink et al, 2014;Oliveira and Afonso, 2015).…”

Bike-sharing as a possibility to support Vision Zero

“…The impact of bike-sharing on the urban transport system -more bikes on the road, thanks to the fact that they are made available by rental companies, increase the mindfulness of drivers and require them to adapt to the fact that they are not on their way, -with the increasing popularity of renting bicycles in cities, there is more and more cycling infrastructure, -cyclists using public bikes are usually less experienced, and therefore more cautious, they are going more carefully and slowly, Safety promotion -often, the implementation of systems involves actions that promote safe road behavior while sharing it with pedestrians and cars. Source: author's own collaboration based on [15,16,19,20,[26][27][28][29][30].…”

“…It should be mentioned that the bike-sharing solution as well as any new transport concept, apart from so many advantages presented in the text, also has disadvantages. The main disadvantage of every sharing system users may be the lack of experience that individual users may have [29,30]. This may cause traffic hazards due to poor knowledge of regulations or just uncertain maneuvers.…”