Defining the spatial impacts of changing the youbike fees: A Case Study of Taipei's Elimination of the “first 30 minutes is free” Policy

In the 1960s, the first shared bike pilot program, “White Bike,” was launched in Europe. Since then, numerous studies related to bike sharing have been published. While most researchers have focused on the current operation of bike sharing systems, relatively few have studied how policy shifts might affect user behavior. Paradoxically, policy shifts are quite common for most bike sharing systems. For example, in April 2014, Taipei City government officials canceled YouBike's “first half hour is free” policy and now charge their users NT$5 instead. In this study, we explored how this fee shift affected the O-D trip distribution and behavior of the YouBike participants, especially in terms of demand and trip length. We analyzed Smart card datasets one year before and after the policy change went into effect to define any differences in demand generated by the change in fee. The datasets included time stamps, check-out stations and return stations. We utilized several spatial models to estimate the changes in demand before and after the policy shift. Compared to the traditional regression model, our spatial model had better fit because it included spatial varying parameters that can capture spatial heterogeneity. The study results not only helped us to quantify the relationship between the change in fee policy and travel demands it also allowed us to develop a procedure for defining the spatial impact of the policy shift. Both contributions will be useful for future policymakers and system operators.