How public shared bike can assist first and last mile accessibility: A case study of the MRT system in Taipei City, Taiwan

Authors

Barbara T.H. Yen
Corinne Mulley
Chia-Jung Yeh

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2023

Subject Area

place - asia, place - urban, mode - bike, mode - mass transit, mode - subway/metro, ridership - demand, ridership - mode choice, technology - passenger information, technology - ticketing systems, policy - sustainable, operations - reliability, planning - service improvement

Keywords

Public shared bike, Bike sharing, First and last mile, Travel time saving, Smart card data, Big data, Accessibility, PTAL

Abstract

In urban areas, public transport can improve sustainable transport by reducing vehicles and congestion, and improving accessibility. Mass rapid transit (MRT) is especially important for large cities, such as Taipei City, Taiwan. In particular, MRT aims to improve mobility and reliability, but has limitations in providing first and last mile accessibility to final destinations or origins. Taipei City, Taiwan has introduced a public bike sharing scheme to service this gap. However, few studies have addressed how a public bike sharing scheme assists first and last mile accessibility. This study uses Taipei City as a case study to investigate this issue by comparing the demand and supply of the public bike sharing scheme, YouBike, at a detailed spatial scale. The supply of YouBike is represented by the time saving compared to walking for each identified origin and destination pair in the study area (i.e., Point of Interests (POIs) and MRT stations). The demand for YouBike is total trips from each YouBike station to a MRT station using public transport smart card data. By comparing the demand and supply for over 400 zones or villages, service gaps and areas of unbalanced service can be identified. The results show that YouBike does provide first and last mile service for the MRT network with some evidence of service mismatch in the study area, i.e., high service for low demand and vice versa. The conclusions of the paper can help cities wanting to introduce a bike sharing schemes to improve first and last mile transport.

Rights

Permission to publish the abstract has been given by Elsevier, copyright remains with them.

Comments

Journal of Transport Geography home Page:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09666923

Recommended Citation

Yen, B. T., Mulley, C., & Yeh, C. J. (2023). How public shared bike can assist first and last mile accessibility: A case study of the MRT system in Taipei City, Taiwan. Journal of Transport Geography, 108, 103569.