Modelling bike-sharing choice in a developing country with a focus on the impacts of air pollution and weather conditions

Developing countries are facing increasing challenges to make urban mobility sustainable and more specifically to tackle the continuously growing air pollution and congestion caused by rapid increase in car ownership. As part of a broad strategy to achieve sustainable urban mobility, bike-sharing service can help reduce car use, especially in city centre area. There is currently a lack of knowledge in developing countries about the factors affecting bike-sharing choice, hindering policy making to effectively improve existing bike-sharing schemes and launch more schemes. This research investigates the factors affecting bike-sharing choice in China with a particular focus on the impacts of air pollution and weather conditions. Multinomial logit model is used to analyse transport mode choice behaviour based on the short-distance stated preference data collected in the case study city, Taiyuan, which currently operates the most demanded bike-sharing scheme in China. The results confirm the strong and significant impacts of air pollution on bike-sharing usage as well as other exposed alternatives such as walk and electric bike. Thus, it is concluded that tackling air pollution can create a virtuous circle to deliver sustainable urban mobility. The impacts of a number of other factors are also found to be significant (e.g. trip purpose, travel cost, age, income and educational level etc.) and can lead to corresponding policy implications