Infrastructure evaluation, role of public bike sharing systems – Global and Indian context

Abstract

Public bike-sharing systems have become a prominent feature across the globe. In less than a decade, bike-sharing systems increased from 347 in 2010 to 2006 in 2020. Despite the bike-sharing ongoing growth, more research is needed, especially in developing countries like India, where the available literature on bike-sharing is minimal. The paper’s main objective is to present a comparative evaluation of bike-sharing systems in Indian cities to other bike-sharing cities worldwide. Further, to examine the differences present between Indian cities and International cities and analyse the reasons for such differences. This study also tried to understand the relationship between various parameters affecting bike-sharing metrics such as bike-share performance, usage, and market penetration. A bivariate correlation and regression analysis revealed several significant predictions among the bike-sharing parameters. These results provide insights into the relative influence of bike-share parameters on bike-share metrics, which can be helpful to city planners and operators in effectively planning bike-share systems. Further, the study also examined the role of bike share as a mode of urban transport and how its relation with other transport systems is changing from city to city. The insights from this analysis also help the city administrators in India to define the role of bike-share based on its size and availability of transport system alternatives in the city.