When crisis hits: Bike-Sharing platforms amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Abstract

In this work, we examine the changes in demand for bike-sharing platforms with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Using the fixed-effects regression formulation of difference-in-differences, we evaluate how the demand for bike-sharing platforms changed after the first cases of Covid were discovered and after the first executive orders were implemented. Accounting for weather conditions, socio-economic characteristics, time trends, and fixed effects across cities, our findings indicate that there is an increase in daily bike-sharing trips by 22% on average after the first Covid-19 case diagnosis, and a decrease of 30% after the first executive order implementation in each municipality, using the data up to August 2020. Moreover, we observe a 22% increase in weekday-specific trip frequency after the first Covid-19 case diagnosis and a 28% decrease in weekend-specific trip frequency after the first executive order implementation. Finally, we find that there is an increase in the frequency of trips on bike-sharing platforms in more bike-friendly, transit-friendly, and pedestrian-friendly cities upon both the first Covid-19 case diagnosis and the first executive order implementation.