Substitutability and Complementarity of Municipal Electric Bike Sharing Systems against Other Forms of Urban Transport

Abstract

The current quantitative and qualitative development of bike-sharing systems worldwide involves particular implications regarding the level of sustainability of urban development and city residents’ quality of life. To make these implications as large as possible as well as the most positive, it is essential that the people who use municipal bikes on a regular basis to the largest extent possible abandon car travel at the same time. Thanks to their operational characteristics, electric bikes should enable meeting the transport needs of a wider group of city residents compared with traditional bicycles. The main aim of this study was therefore to check whether the municipal electric bike system (MEVO) in Gdańsk-Gdynia-Sopot metropolitan area of Poland lived up to the hopes placed upon it by policymakers. Therefore, the article tests the hypothesis indicating that the municipal electric bike systems constitute a substitutable form of transportation against passenger cars to a larger extent than against collective urban transport and walking trips. The analysis was performed based on the results of primary studies conducted among the users of MEVO. The data show that the MEVO was a substitutable form of transportation against collective transport and walking trips to a larger extent than against passenger cars. Through logistic regression analysis, the variables concerning the probability of replacing car trips by MEVO bicycles were determined. Among the analyzed variables, the following turned out to be statistically significant: age, the number of people in the household, the number of cars in the household, the distance from work, and gender. The results therefore indicate that substituting in favor of electro bikes was more probable for younger people with fewer people in the household and a distance to travel below 3 km, whereas it was less probable for people with more cars in the household or traveling a distance longer than 10 km. Additionally, females were more likely to choose the bike system.