Bike sharing systems in European cities

Extending product lifespans and increasing usage intensity reduce environmental impacts. The rising trend of bike-sharing in Europe, with a 4% increase in bikes per 1,000 citizens from 2016 to 2023, highlights this efficiency boost.

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Maximizing the value and function of existing products requires longer product lifespans but also more intensity of use per product. Hence, it is not only about keeping products for longer but also how much they are used. Increasing the lifespan and intensity of use can both help increase circularity and reduce the demand for raw materials for new products. This in turn can reduce negative environmental impacts related to the production of new products. Sharing systems could enhance the intensity of use of products, because one bike is shared with many people.

Bike-sharing programs have become an integral part of urban mobility across Europe, offering residents and tourists alike an eco-friendly, convenient, and affordable way to navigate cities. The general trend among eight selected cities of available bikes per 1000 citizens shows an increasing trend in all but two (Brussels and Vilnius). This indicates that bike sharing is increasing in Europe, which again indicates that the intensity of which we use individual bikes is increasing.

The sharp increase in the average number of available bikes per population since 2020 is driven by an increase in especially Ljubljana, Lund, Luxemburg and Lyon. These 3 cities have 1.75 rental bikes per 1000 inhabitants (i.e., approximately 7 bikes for every 4000 inhabitants), while Nicosia and Vilnius have less than 1 bike per 1000 inhabitants (i.e., 0.75 in Nicosia and 0.25 in Vilnius). The rest all have at least 1 bike per 1000 inhabitants.

Several factors contribute to the success of bike share schemes in European cities, for example:

· Investment in cycling infrastructure, including dedicated bike lanes and ample docking stations.

· Seamlessly integration with other forms of public transport, making it easier for users to switch between transportation modes.

· The use of modern technology, such as mobile apps for easy bike rentals and real-time availability tracking, has made bike sharing more user-friendly.

· Supportive policies and incentives from local governments, such as subsidies for bike share programs and restrictions on car use in city centers, can play a crucial role.

· Public campaigns promoting the benefits of cycling and a cultural shift towards more sustainable modes of transport can further increase the uptake of bike sharing.

· Economic incentives such as affordable pricing and membership options can make bike sharing an attractive alternative to other forms of transport.

Bicycle sharing systems are widespread all over Europe and the rest of the world. Most of these systems adhere to the “General Bikeshare Feed Specification” (GBFS) as a standardized data feed to exchange information on the availability and status of the system.This standard provides a uniform way to collect information on the various systems such as the available number of bikes, stations and docking places.

In order to compare across the different cities of varying size, the number of available bikes in each city is normalized by its city population. The final indicator is the average over the selected cities of the number of bikes normalized by city population.

The bikeshare-research website keeps track of the statistics (such as number of available bikes, stations and docking locations) of bike sharing systems all over the world by automatically scraping the APIs of these bike sharing systems. The result is a time series showing the evolution of these systems across the world. The collected data on cities in the EU is available since as early as 2008 (for Luxembourg) and from 2016 onwards for the selected cities.

For each European country data availability up to now was checked. For each country the data feed of the capital city is used or the next major city in case no timely data was available. This results in 8 cities with available and timely data.

Bicycle sharing system research, beyond the analysis of individual systems, requires copious data gathering and parsing. That is why the Bike Share Research (BSR) -website aims to facilitate the curation of data on bicycle sharing systems through a collaborative and open data platform while making its API accessible.

Definition

The metric represents the average yearly percentual change in available bikes per inhabitant for the selected cities.

Methodology

The raw number of bikes per city at each available date were collected and averaged per year. This yields yearly averages per city. These yearly averages were then normalized by the latest available city population. The final indicator is constructed by averaging the normalized city averages.

Metadata

· Data source:

o Number of bikes per bike sharing system: https://bikeshare-research.org

o City population: https://en.populationdata.net/rankings/cities/europe/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lund for Lund.

· Unit: average yearly percentual change in the number of bikes per 1000 citizens

· Temporal coverage: 2008 (for some systems) up to today.

· Geographic coverage: A selection of European cities: Brussels, Ljubljana, Lund, Luxembourg, Lyon, Seville, Vilnius and Nicosia

Literature

· Dziecielski M., Nikitas A., Radzimski A., Caulfield B.; “Understanding the determinants of bike-sharing demand in the context of a medium-sized car-oriented city: The case study of Milton Keynes, UK”; Sustainable cities and society, 2024; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2024.105781

· The Bikeshare Planning Guide, Institute for transportation and development policy, 2018

References and footnotes

The Bikeshare Planning Guide, ITDP 2018; Dziecielski M. et al., 2024
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The specification is available on https://gbfs.org/. At the time of writing 826 bike sharing systems worldwide are known to adhere to the GBFS.
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