Analyzing Destination Choice Preferences in Bicycle Sharing Systems: An Investigation of Chicago’s Divvy System

In recent years, there has been increasing attention on bicycle-sharing systems (BSS) as a viable and sustainable mode of transportation for short trips. However, due to relatively recent adoption of BSS there is very little research exploring how people consider these systems within the existing transportation alternatives. Given the recent growth of BSS across the world, there is substantial interest in identifying contributing factors that encourage individuals to use these systems. The current study contributes to the growing literature by examining BSS behavior at a trip level to analyze bicyclists’ destination preferences. Specifically, the authors study the decision process involved in identifying destination locations after picking up a bicycle at a BSS station using a random utility maximization approach in the form of a multinomial logit model (MNL). The quantitative frameworks developed have been estimated using data from Chicago’s Divvy system for 2013. In their modeling effort, they distinguish between BSS users with annual membership and short-term customers with daily passes. The developed model will allow bicycle-sharing system operators to better plan their services by examining the impact of travel distance, land use, built environment and access to public transportation infrastructure on use destination preferences. Using the estimated model the authors generate utility profiles as a function of distance and various other attributes allowing us to visually represent the trade-offs that individuals make in their decision process. To further illustrate the applicability of the proposed framework for planning purposes, destination station choice probability prediction is undertaken.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANF20 Bicycle Transportation.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Imani, Ahmadreza Faghih
  • Eluru, Naveen
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2015-1-11 to 2015-1-15
• Date: 2015

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 20p
• Monograph Title: TRB 94th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bicycling; Multinomial logits; Route choice; Stated preferences; Sustainable transportation; Vehicle sharing
• Uncontrolled Terms: Destinations
• Geographic Terms: Chicago (Illinois)
• Subject Areas: Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01555445
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 15-2959
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 27 2015 10:03AM