Toward sustainable travel: An analysis of campus bikeshare use

Abstract

In this study, we use University of Maryland's (UMD) bikeshare ridership data along with historical weather data, elevation, and transit service location data to analyze bikeshare trip patterns and explore the various factors influencing demand for the system across the UMD campus. We analyzed the spatial, temporal, and environmental factors influencing trips within a 19-month period to shed some light on how the bikeshare system is being used across campus and in its surroundings and to determine the most important factors shaping the demand. Results show that, similar to the city-wide bikeshare systems, demand for campus bikeshare is mostly influenced by weather, time of day, day of the week, month of the year, and accessibility to transit and various other destinations. However, unlike the city-wide bikeshare systems, there is not a concentration of trips within peak hours, as trips are scattered throughout the day. This is probably due to the flexible working schedules of bikeshare users on-campus (i.e., students and faculty), as opposed to the users of city-wide systems. Additionally, results indicate a higher on-campus usage of the system within the proximity of the transit hubs with a median trip duration of 6.8 min which supports the complementary relationship between bikeshare system and conventional transit systems.