Abstract
Redistribution is an important part of operational activities in a bicycle sharing system (BSS). This paper proposes that there are two types of users in a BSS: leisure travelers and commuters. The operators and the government are adopting the bidirectional incentive model (BIM) to improve their service level of redistribution. That is, the BIM stimulates leisure travelers to actively respond to bicycle resetting needs of the system; on the other hand, it guides commuters by encouraging them to avoid travelling in peak periods. This is beneficial to achieve the goals of reducing the scheduling pressure on bicycles during rush hour, and even to realize the self-resetting of the BSS. In this paper, we explore three scenarios for implementing BIM through cooperation between the operator and the government. By exploiting Stackelberg games in all models, we illustrate the quantity of users in three different travel behaviors, and surplus value of these users respectively. We also consider the trend of the profit of the operator and the government when some changes of parameters are made. The numerical analysis and case discussion find that the strategy of the operator implementing BIM with a subsidy is the best method for developed regions. In a developing region, the strategy of implementing the BIM with a direct government subsidy to users is the best choice in a small or tourist city. In these cities, the proportion of leisure travelers is always larger than 50%, resulting in a significant incentive effect. The strategy of the operator implementing BIM without a subsidy is the best choice for the large and medium-sized city.
Highlights
Nordic countries spearheaded bicycle sharing systems and this green, economical, flexible, sustainable mobility model has garnered interest worldwide [1]
The simplification does not change the essence of the problem and the following assumptions are made for each model: Assumption 1: In this paper, we consider only one operator and one government in a bicycle sharing system (BSS); Assumption 2: The proposed model focuses on the rebalance in BSS during rush hour, so it only discusses the new changes of stakeholders’ profit after implementing the bidirectional incentive model (BIM)
In order to solve this concern, we divide users in a BSS into two types: leisure travelers and commuters. The service provider, such as the operator and the government could implement BIM. The aim of this is to stimulate leisure travelers to actively respond to the bicycle resetting needs in a BSS, and guide commuters to avoid travelling during rush hour
Summary
Nordic countries spearheaded bicycle sharing systems and this green, economical, flexible, sustainable mobility model has garnered interest worldwide [1]. Alvarez-Valdes et al proposed a procedure to solve the problem of BBSS [12] This procedure provided operational strategies with redistribution algorithms by estimating the unsatisfied demand on available bicycles or lockers at each station. From the above literature we find that, no matter what type of transportation is considered, in order to use the price incentive mechanism to relieve rush hour traffic pressure by operators, and ensure their profits are not affected, the prerequisite is for the users to have heterogeneity in degrees of PS and VOT. Ruch et al proved that dynamic pricing could control the travel behavior of users by employing an Agent-Based Model with parameters consisting of real historical data [26] They proved that simple proportional price control rules can enhance the service level without relying on the bicycle redistribution staff to balance the “one-way” phenomenon.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
