Equity implications of electric bikesharing in Philadelphia.

Abstract

Bikesharing is an affordable mode of transportation and a potential tool to reduce car usage in cities. However, in many cities, bikesharing seems to be used mostly by affluent populations. Indego, Philadelphia’s bikeshare, embraced the promotion of equity as part of its primary goals. While previous measures were not adequate for that cause, Indego decided to integrate e-bikes into its system to promote usage among current non-users. In this study, I examine how the integration of e-bikes influences Indego’s usage in disadvantaged areas. For that purpose, I combined official publicly available data using spatial analysis methods. Furthermore, I used random forest and spatial negative binomial regression to examine factors associated with shared bicycle and e-bike usage in Philadelphia. The findings show that e-bikes increase the overall usage of Indego, specifically in disadvantaged areas. In these regions, the users use shared e-bikes for commute, leisure, and other utilitarian purposes, while in the rest of the city, users use e-bikes mainly for commuting. I conclude that the integration of e-bikes was successful in promoting bikesharing usage in disadvantaged areas.