Efficiency and equality of the multimodal travel between public transit and bike-sharing accounting for multiscale

Abstract

As a supplement to the existing public transit system, bike-sharing is considered an effective solution to the “first mile” and “last mile” of travel. While many stakeholders believe that multimodal travel between public transit and bike-sharing can improve urban accessibility and sustainability, few studies have assessed the impact of bike-sharing on existing public transportation systems in terms of efficiency and equality. This research uses three months of mobile phone location data and about 140 million bike-sharing trips (origin–destination, OD) data from Shenzhen, China, to analyze first mile and last mile bike-sharing multimodal travel and measure the impact of bike-sharing on the existing public transportation system in terms of efficiency and equality at different scales. The research finds that bike-sharing is less effective in improving the operational efficiency of urban public transport and creates new inequalities at both global and local scales of the urban public transport system. Bike-sharing is only effective in tiny areas of the city and specific modes (subway-bike-sharing) and does not benefit groups with low socioeconomic levels and those living in edge areas of the city. Improving the equity and accessibility of public transportation is a key factor towards promoting sustainable urban development, and the analysis of this study on multimodal travel efficiency and inequality of bike-sharing can provide helpful insights for future sustainable urban planning.