Despite the popularity of bike sharing systems (BSS), few studies have quantified cost of service of BSS and how travel behavior may be influencing it. As such, much debate exists about the potential of bike sharing, with some studies advocating benefits from increased utilization while other studies warning of costs from excessive rebalancing operations. This paper introduces a new metric to quantify cost of service in BSS as the infrastructure rent (for bikes and docks) and rebalancing work required to mobilize a pattern of trips, and it presents a comparative study between four BSS in North America during one month of operations, focusing on four questions: What would be the infrastructure rent requirements of each system’s trip pattern if no rebalancing work were done? What were the resulting infrastructure rent requirements of each system’s trip pattern based on the rebalancing work that was done? How effective was the rebalancing work that each system did in reducing the infrastructure rent requirements of its trip pattern? How does occupancy variability and travel pattern asymmetry influence cost of service? Results show that service requirements and, thereby, potential, vary substantially between systems based on the spatiotemporal characteristics and asymmetry of their trip patterns and that each system responded differently to these requirements in terms of infrastructure capacity and rebalancing work.

尽管自行车共享系统 (BSS) 很受欢迎，但很少有研究量化 BSS 的服务成本以及出行行为可能如何影响它。因此，关于共享单车的潜力存在很多争论，一些研究主张从提高利用率中获益，而另一些研究则警告过度再平衡操作会带来成本。本文引入了一种新指标来量化 BSS 中的服务成本作为 基础设施租金 （用于自行车和码头）和重新平衡工作 需要调动出行模式，它提供了北美四个 BSS 在一个月运营期间的比较研究，重点关注四个问题：如果不进行再平衡工作，每个系统的出行模式的基础设施租金要求是多少？根据已完成的再平衡工作，每个系统的出行模式所产生的基础设施租金要求是多少？每个系统在降低其出行模式的基础设施租金要求方面所做的再平衡工作的效果如何？入住率变化和出行模式不对称如何影响服务成本？结果表明，服务需求和潜力，