What is Bike Sharing?
Bike sharing is the shared sue of a bicycle fleet. It provides short-term access to the bicycles for users on an as needed basis.
There are many benefits to bike sharing including:
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1.Increased mobility options
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2.Cost savings from modal shifts
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3.Low implementation and operational costs
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4.Reduced traffic congestion/parking shortages
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5.Reduced fuel use if replacing automobile use
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6.Increased health benefits
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7.Lessen environmental impacts
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8.Time savings over walking
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CycleUshare provides both regular bicycles and electric-assist bicycles, or e-bikes, to
students,faculty, and staff at the University of Tennessee who are registered users of the
system.
What are E-Bikes?
Electric bicycles, or e-bikes, are electronic motorized bicycles with rechargeable batteries. There are two types, pedelex (used in cycleUshare) and throttle controlled.
E-Bikes are a great option for the University of Tennessee’s hilly, sprawling campus and less the need for many intra-campus car trips.
To Learn more about the specific bicycles available in cycleUshare, visit the Project Information Page.
Bike Sharing History
Research has been done regarding the three generations of bike sharing systems. The first generation began in Amsterdam in 1965, and was highly unsuccessful due to much vandalizing and theft. One could just take a specific colored bike wherever it was found, and then leave it at any place and any time for the next user. The second generation was born in Denmark in 1991 whereby bikes could be picked up and returned to several central locations with a coin deposit. Theft was also a problem largely due to the anonymity of the user. Third generation bike sharing was born in Portsmouth University in England and involved several technological improvements such as bike racks that locked electronically, on board computers, swipe cards, and telecommunication capabilities. In 2005 and 2007 respectively, Lyon and Paris, France launched highly successful third generation bike sharing programs that grew to having over 15,000 and 20,000 bikes respectively. Today, one bike share program per month is being created somewhere in the world (DeMaio 2009).
Beginning in 2008, cities outside of Europe began to launch third generation programs. Rio De Janiero, Brazil launched a pilot public bicycle sharing program in 2009. The first eight stations were launched in the Copacabana with a total of 80 bikes. In the first eight months, 4,316 trips were made. An online registration system is employed, allowing users to make and pay for bicycle reservations with their cell phones. Some of the largest bike sharing networks are in cities such as Beijing, Hangzhou (40,000 bikes and 1,700 stations), and Wuhan, China (13,000 bikes and 516 stations). Other cities include Santiago, Chile and Mexico City, Mexico (Schroeder, Hagen et al. 2009).
In North America, Montreal, Canada and Washington D.C. have launched successful third generation bike sharing programs. In addition, research has been conducted for a program in Philadelphia. A two-phased project was researched, using a raster-based geographic information systems (GIS) analysis to determine a geographic market area for a bike sharing system, and applied bike share trip diversion rates observed in peer European cities to estimate the number of bike share trips. This research estimated daily usage in Philadelphia to be from 6,000 to 23,000 (Krykewycz, Puchalsky et al. 2010).
