Public bike-sharing schemes (PBSS): Prospects in Bangladesh

Abstract

Public bike-sharing schemes (PBSS) or bicycle hiring schemes (BHS) are now available in many cities globally. The purpose of this paper is to provide an outline for the feasibility of implementing PBSS in Bangladesh, particularly in Dhaka city, discussing the major issues that need to be considered. For doing this, PBSS that are already available and operating in six different cities - London, Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, Hangzhou, and New Delhi - were studied and relevant documents were reviewed to understand the salient features of the schemes as well as their overall operating and management systems. By understanding the critical aspects of the PBSS in the above mentioned cities, the implementation process and tasks required for PBSS were assessed with the existing conditions in the case study area of Dhaka city. The detailed scheme of bike-sharing for the case study locations in Dhaka were prepared and analysis was made of the strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) of the proposed scheme. Questionnaire surveys of bicyclists were made to understand their travel patterns as well as deriving their opinions and views regarding the proposed PBSS for the case study locations. Findings of this research will help as the guiding principles for implementing PBSS in Dhaka city as well as in other similar cities in Bangladesh, or in other countries in the Global South.

Introduction

A public bike-sharing scheme (PBSS) is a system where bicycles are strategically placed in a closely spaced network of stations and offered for public use. The PBSS serves as an alternate mode of public transport in which people have access to cycles that can be used across a network of closely spaced stations in urban areas (Lin et al., 2013, ITDP, 2013). The system provides point to point active travel for short distance trips without the need to own a bicycle. Hou and Haddad (2020) stated “Users of PBSS can take advantages of biking without the responsibilities of bike purchase, maintenance, and obligations related to parking and storage. Moreover, PBSS incorporate cycling into the public transport system”. Thus, bike-sharing can provide a connection to other modes of transit and focuses on the first mile and/or last mile of the user’s commute (Ma et al., 2018, Lin et al., 2013). A PBSS enables bicycles to be picked up at any self-serve bicycle station and returned to any other bicycle station, which makes bicycle-sharing ideal for point-to-point trips (NYC DCP, 2009). For instance, an individual can check out a bike from one station with a smart card or other form of identification for a short trip (usually between 30 minutes to an hour) and return it to the same docking point or another docking point within the network (Mateo-Babiano, 2015). Bicycle sharing as a concept has been available in different countries for the last 50 years (Meddin, 2015). PBSSs are also termed Bicycle Sharing Systems (BSS), Bicycle Hiring Schemes (BHS), Bikes Hiring, Smart Bikes, Bicycle Sharing Schemes (BSS), etc.

The potential benefits of bicycle are: flexibility, easy availability, and lower cost (TRIPP, 2008). Bicycle is considered as one of the alternative transport modes to reduce transport problems (Dey et al., 2014). For instance, promoting walking and cycling along with a shift away from motorized vehicles could help reduce traffic congestion, noise, and the emission of greenhouse gases. To tap those benefits, many cities consider PBSS as a strategy to facilitate short-term bicycle rental in urban areas (Woodcock et al., 2014, Hou and Haddad, 2020), and therefore PBSSs have been widely adopted in many cities around the world (Chen et al., 2020). Many authors (e.g. Woodcock et al., 2014, Médard de Chardon et al., 2017, Shaheen et al., 2010, Kou and Cai, 2019, Ma et al., 2018, Qian and Niemeier, 2019, Burden and Barth, 2009) claimed that bike-sharing is gaining popularity around the world because it has many social, economic and environmental benefits. For instance, a PBSS provides benefits to users through improved health, increased transport choice and convenience, reduced travel time/congestion and cost, and improved travel experience (Ricci, 2015, Woodcock et al., 2014). A PBSS can also help to solve the last-mile problems (Ma et al., 2018, Qian and Niemeier, 2019), to increase bicycle use and growing awareness of bike-sharing as a daily mobility option as well as to reduce auto use, thus reducing traffic congestion and noise/emissions (Shaheen et al., 2010). Moreover, ITDP (2013) has specified that PBSS may solve the “last mile” problem of transit passengers who need to travel from the station to their destinations, may help developing tourism, meeting pollution targets or targeted modal splits of the city, and even generating employment. As of 2015, almost 800 cities in about 50 countries have advanced bike-sharing programs with a combined fleet of more than 900,000 bicycles (Larsen, xxxx, Meddin, 2015). However, the purposes of introducing PBSS in different cities are not always the same. For example, Paris (France) and Buenos Aires (Argentina) introduced PBSS to promote tourism by ensuring a safe and convenient travel mode for tourists (Burden and Barth, 2009, Ecobici., 2017) whilst in London (UK) and New York (USA) it was to promote an eco-friendly mode and mode switching to cycling (Mulholland, 2008, Burden and Barth, 2009). In Hangzhou (China) and in New Delhi (India) it was to provide the last-mile connectivity of transit users (Shaheen et al., 2011, The Hindu, 2015).

Transportation in developing countries is different from developed countries. In developing country cities, despite increasing car ownership rates, a large portion of people use public transport and a variety of informal mode (IMs) or non-motorized transport (NMT) modes for travel (Rahman and Timms, 2020, Gakenheimer, 1999). However, even though NMT in Bangladesh play a significant role in transport services, policymakers often ignore or do not give due importance to NMT during resource allocation (Rahman, 2013). Annual sales demand for bicycles in Bangladesh in 2014 was about 500,000, which is about 40% more than in the previous three years (Prothom Alo, 2014), thus reflecting the increasing interest of adopting bicycles as a mode of transport. However, the total number of cycles and the proportion of cycle trips in Dhaka are still very low. For instance, data of STP (2005) reveal that even though half of the trips (about 51%) in Dhaka city are on non-motorized modes, the contribution of bicycles is very low (only 2%) as rickshaws are very dominant (49%). Rahman (2009) mentioned the major causes for the low rate of bicycle trips in Dhaka city as being: unavailability of required bicycle infrastructure and resulting safety concern of cyclists; mixed traffic using the same road space; social acceptance or cultural aspects of people; high motorization rate; and NMT not being prioritized in funding allocations or policy. However, bicycle is one of the cheapest forms of urban transport - only one quarter the cost of bus travel per passenger/km and one-tenth the cost of rickshaw travel in Dhaka (Rahman, 2013). Moreover, compared to cars, bicycles are affordable, pollution free (environment friendly), and take very little road space per passenger (STP, 2005, RSTP., 2015). Therefore, if planned properly so that the required infrastructure facilities are provided, bicycles in Bangladesh, and particularly in Dhaka city, could play a very positive role in reducing urban transport problems. Research (Rahman, 2009, Rahman, 2008) demonstrates that there are good potentials in Dhaka city to encourage people to use bicycle. As already discussed earlier, bike-sharing schemes have many benefits, and having a PBSS may lead to numerous social, environmental and economic benefits for the city. These benefits include: improved health (reduction in disease burden and exposure to air pollution); improved last-mile connectivity and thus increased transport choice and convenience; reduced congestion and cost; increased bicycle use and growing awareness of bike-sharing as a mobility option; and thus reduced auto use and noise/emissions.

The objectives and methodology of this paper are provided in Section 2. Section 3 describes the major types and characteristics of PBSS. Review of selected PBSS operating in different cities around the world, and the lessons learnt from those selected cities, are discussed in Section 4. Section 5 reports on the results from the case study conducted in Dhaka city about the prospects of introducing PBSS and highlights the proposed planning guidelines for PBSS in Dhaka. Section 6 provides discussion and conclusions.