Operational Redistribution Model for a Large-Scale Bicycle-Sharing System

Abstract

In recent years, bicycle-sharing systems (BSSs) have been getting more and more popular in many cities all over the world, particularly in developing countries. However, a significant operating problem was the imbalance that occurred in the distribution of bicycles, especially in large-scale BSSs during peak hours. This problem could significantly reduce the level of service and number of potential users. To improve the level of service of BSSs, the necessity of redistribution was analyzed, and an operational redistribution model (ORM) that could deal with large-scale redistribution was developed. The objective of the ORM was to minimize the generalized operation costs of BSSs, which were the penalty cost of unserved user demand and the cost of redistribution of bicycles. The overall system performance was analyzed under several scenarios. The results demonstrated that an ORM could effectively improve the level of service of a BSS and could provide a detailed work plan for each redistribution truck to implement. For redistribution in a large-scale BSS, the partition of subzones was important to achieve a high level of service with relatively low generalized costs. In addition, an optimal number of subzones could be found through the scenario-based optimization process.