Abstract
As an icon of sharing economy and product service systems, bicycle sharing is gaining an increasing global popularity, yet there is little knowledge about the environmental performance of this emerging traveling mode. To seek the answer to the question, the paper employs a survey-based method and a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. We first conduct a questionnaire-based survey to identify the changes in traveling modes after the introduction of shared bicycles. The survey results show that the use of shared bicycles is more popular among young and low-income populations, and shared bicycles are predominantly used to replace walking and bus-taking. Based on the survey results, we model the environmental impacts of the changed traveling behaviors and the life cycle of shared bicycle with the aid of Gabi software. The LCA results shows that bicycle sharing is currently an environmentally friendly practice, as it brings environmental savings in all the indicators except metal consumption. Further, the results of sensitivity analysis show that aging, rising rental fees, and increasing volume of shared bicycles would impart negative impacts on the environmental performance of bicycle sharing. The findings of this work facilitate the management and development of bicycle sharing.
Highlights
As a representative of sharing economy and product service system (PSS), bicycle sharing has been adopted in major cities such as Shanghai, London, Chicago, and Paris [1,2]
The objective of this life cycle assessment (LCA) study is to assess whether the environmental impacts of the reduced mileage of other traveling modes that are replaced by shared bicycle can sufficiently offset the life cycle environmental burdens associated with shared bicycle
We explore the changes in LCA results relative to that of the base scenario when the service life is set as a year (52 weeks), two years (104 weeks), and three years (156 weeks), four years (208 weeks), and five years (260 weeks)
Summary
As a representative of sharing economy and product service system (PSS), bicycle sharing has been adopted in major cities such as Shanghai, London, Chicago, and Paris [1,2]. In China, it has reported that more than 23 M shared bicycles have been introduced and attracted 400 M users as of January 2018 [3], the rapid development of bicycle sharing service has created over 100,000 jobs [4]. Caggiani et al [9] stated that bicycle sharing can significantly reduce air pollution, since it provides users with a carbon-free traveling mode. This argument is agreed by other scholars like Shaheen et al [10] and Otero et al [11] and Cohen [12], yet, their claim lacks of quantitative support
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