Review of bike-sharing system studies using bibliometrics method

Abstract

Compared to motorized modes, bike-sharing systems (BSSs) are generally recognized as an environmentally friendly mode of transport and mobility. Due to the advantages and benefits of BSSs, they have spread globally in the past decade. The mapping knowledge domain (MKD) technique is an important tool for bibliometric analysis that can directly reflect the development status and trends in a research field and has been extensively applied in natural science, medical science, engineering and technology, humanities and the social sciences. In this paper, we conduct a systematic analysis of the development trend in bike-sharing studies taken from Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection articles published between 2010 and 2020 using the MKD software tool VOSviewer and CiteSpace. The results show that the topics of the cited documents can be divided into three categories: (a) development, operation mode and lessons learned; (b) BSS static rebalancing problem; (c) spatiotemporal characteristics and demand prediction. Next, we conduct document co-citation analysis and keyword co-occurrence analysis to visually explore the research trends in bike-sharing studies. Our results also find that, (a) bicycle rebalancing problem, (b) travel behavioral movements and barrier, (c) impact factors and characteristics of the internal usage demand, (d) innovation and sustainability for BSSs in the future, and (e) built environment and land-use, are the five major research areas and interests for bike-sharing studies. Finally, examining the trends in BSSs studies by identifying keyword bursts allows an on-demand characteristics analysis based on multisource data fusion technology. This study expands the application field of the MKD analysis method and promotes the development of BSSs against a background of new technology innovation.