Highlights We identify the relationship between bike sharing and public transit (PT). We estimate the environmental impacts of bikeshare as it also substitutes PT. 27.9% of bikeshare trips substitute buses and 8.1% substitute subways. Bikeshare has significant environmental benefits by replacing other modes. Environmental benefits are overestimated if not considering the substitution for PT.
Abstract Bike sharing has the potential to benefit the environment with less energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Most previous studies on this topic assumed that bikeshare trips mainly substitute cars. However, bikeshare also replaces ecologically friendly transportation modes like public transit (PT). Therefore, it is vital to examine bikeshare's modal shift from PT to fully assess its environmental impacts. This paper examines the bikeshare and PT relationships in Chengdu,and environmental effects of bike sharing under two cases based on this relationship. The first case only considers the substitution of bikeshare for car and walking, and 19,964.31 L of fuel and 4125.13 kg of CO2 can be saved; while the second case also considers its substitution for buses and subways, and 13,198.68 L of fuel and 2564.31 kg of CO2 can be saved. Results indicate that the environmental benefits of bike sharing may be overestimated if not considering its substitution for PT.
Environmental impact assessment of bike-sharing considering the modal shift from public transit
2022-01-01
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English