Performance evaluation of bike sharing system in Wuchang area of Wuhan, China

During the last few years, bike sharing systems in many cities around the world, have received increasingly attention. The initiatives are to increase bike usage, improve the last mile connection to other transports, and lessen the impacts on environment. In recent years, Europe has experienced a real boom of public bicycle schemes, which make the public bicycle accessible as a part of other public transport systems. The number of cities that already implemented or plan to do so has increased strongly. Bike sharing system has also been appearing in China since 2005; and till now, there are more than 10 cities show their interests in building bike sharing systems. Wuhan launched bike sharing system in 2009, which is the first free system in China, but there are some problems shown in the operation of this bike sharing system. This paper seeks to evaluate the performance of bike sharing system in Wuchang area of Wuhan in China, based on problems which were presented in the operation of bike sharing system. Method on the combination of GIS and Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) is adopted in this research, by building a series of indicators which are assumed that would influence the performance of this bike sharing system. In this research, the efficient performance of bike sharing system is defined as operational efficiency and spatial effectiveness of bike sharing system. The operational efficiency of bike sharing system aims at understanding the characteristics of public bike users, and evaluating the conditions of bike lanes from the perspective of public bike users. Through the questionnaire survey on public bike users and investigation on bike lanes, a series of the characteristics of public bike users and conditions of bike lanes are understood. Meanwhile, the spatial effectiveness of bike sharing system aims at analyzing the characteristics of bike stations, and accessibility between bike stations and other facilities. The evaluation results can be used to improve the public bicycle program.