Bike-share programs don’t just cater for residents. When tourists use them too, that greatly increases the value the whole community gets from these bikes.
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Low-income and minority groups are often reliant on cheaper modes of transport, but many find cycling to work problematic.
A national consultation may (legally) bring e-scooters to UK cities.
Combining big data sources about bike-share trips with anonymized data from traditional survey research can best capture who is using bike-share programs.
If cities had backed their active transport goals with investment in adequate cycling infrastructure we might not be having the arguments about dockless bikes ‘littering’ public space.
Urban planners often hope bike-share schemes might reduce reliance on cars and help with congestion. But very few of those who use share bikes have switched from driving.
Dockless or stationless bike sharing is risky business, relying a bit too much on common decency. Bike sharing schemes can work, but they may need to forego user convenience for bike safety.
Dozens of US cities have launched bike-share programs in the past decade. There have been bumps – critics want wider access, and cities want bikes stored out of the way – but bike sharing is on a roll.
Mental short-cuts guide our everyday decision-making. Unfortunately, five biases can lead us to deny responsibility for our poor decisions and are creating problems for share-bike schemes.
There are three key cultural reasons why a share-bike business model that could be successful in Singapore is much less likely to be so in Australia.
If we’re going to intervene to stop the dumping of share bikes, we need to understand the bad behaviour in the first place, then design effective measures to change how bike users behave.
Many short-term bike-hiring programs have been launched amid much fanfare, only for their popularity to decline soon after. Several key factors need to be in place for a program to work.
Australians can see the impact of dockless bike sharing on the streets of their cities. The huge store of data collected about user journeys is less visible, but just as important.
Dramatic images of “bike graveyards” shouldn’t be taken at face value – there’s hope for bike-sharing schemes yet.
There is more to bike-share schemes than first meets the eye. As they grow in global popularity, the economic models behind them become increasingly diversified.
Top contributors
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Associate Professor in Urban Planning, The University of Queensland
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Professor, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland
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PhD Candidate at BehaviourWorks, Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University
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Professor Communications and Media, University of Canberra
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Richard Bean is a Friend of The Conversation.
Research Fellow, Centre for Energy Data Innovation, The University of Queensland
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Associate Professor in Urban Planning, The University of Melbourne
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Research Fellow in Urban Studies, University of Salford
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Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University
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Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Wollongong
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Reader in Smart Transport, University of Huddersfield
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Professor of Geography, University of Wollongong
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Lecturer and Programme Leader, BA International Tourism and Events Management, Glasgow Caledonian University
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Professor of Urban Science, UNSW Sydney
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Professor of Urban Planning, The University of Melbourne
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Public Involvement Specialist, Adjunct professor, Boston University
