Abstract
Bike sharing is increasingly attracting more riders in cities around the world for its benefits regarding the urban environment and public health. The public bike sharing program of Seoul, South Korea, first launched in October 2015, is now widely spread around the city and serves more than 27,000 riders daily. However, concerns are being raised as rising air pollution levels in Seoul, represented by particulate matter (PM) levels, in recent years may negatively discourage citizens from using bike sharing. This study investigates the impact of PM10 and PM2.5 levels on bike sharing use in Seoul and seeks to identify any seasonal differences. A series of negative binomial regression models, which take into account control variables like weather conditions and calendar events, are adopted to empirically measure the impacts. Results show that the PM levels yield statistically significant negative impacts (p < 0.01) on bike sharing use throughout the year. The impacts are particularly stronger in winter and spring, when the PM levels are higher. Findings suggest that PM levels may operate as driving factors for bike sharing use in addition to meteorological conditions like temperature, humidity, and precipitation.
Highlights
The use of bike sharing as a means of transportation in urban areas throughout the world grew over the last few decades
The average PM10 and PM2.5 levels in spring were above the yearly average at 48.7 and 27.5, respectively
Note: Bonferroni-corrected p-values are applied to remove the problem of multiple hypothesis testing. These results demonstrate the seasonal differences that exist in the impacts of particulate matter (PM) levels on bike sharing use in Seoul
Summary
The use of bike sharing as a means of transportation in urban areas throughout the world grew over the last few decades. Lower prices than other means, lack of congestion, and marriage with smart phone technologies make bike sharing ubiquitous. It attracts numerous intracity travelers, as well as large investments from both public and private sectors [4,5]. Bike sharing is known to produce a wide range of benefits as research suggests. It benefits the environment by reducing car dependency so as to curtail greenhouse gas emissions [4,15,16,17,18]. Somewhat related to the first, it relieves traffic congestion [19,20]
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