Improving the sustainability of integrated transportation system with bike-sharing: A spatial agent-based approach

Bike-sharing systems have rapidly expanded around the world in recent years. However, bike-sharing research focusing on East Asia is limited. The impacts of bike-sharing on travelers’ usage of other transport modes in an integrated transportation system remain unclear. This study develops a spatial Agent-based model to simulate the use of bike-sharing services and other transport modes in Taipei city, considering their interactions through the modeling of the modal split based on the heterogeneous mode choice behaviors of travelers. Two scenarios are proposed for the development of a bike-sharing system: 1) bike infrastructure extensions; and 2) bike-sharing incentives. Two scenarios are evaluated along with the corresponding environmental and social impacts. The simulation results indicate that free use of bike-sharing to connect the transit system can be most sustainable with 1.5 million US dollars in transportation damage cost saved per year, and 22 premature deaths further prevented per year due to mode shift to cycling and walking based on the business as usual (BAU) scenario. However, bike-sharing has limited influence on the use of motorcycles, which is nearly invariable. This model can be a powerful tool to help policy-makers improve the sustainability of a multi-modal transportation system with bike-sharing.