The integration of electric bicycles (e-bikes) with bikesharing could increase the utility of bikesharing through a reduction of some barriers to bicycling and an increase in the number of prospective users. North America's first e-bikesharing system (cycleUshare) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, offers a new, sustainable transportation option for students, faculty, and staff. The cycleUshare system with two stations was launched as a small pilot project to study the technology and its users' experiences. This paper presents an overview of the cycleUshare system and reports experiences from the first year of operation. With 93 enrolled users, cycleUshare provided a unique opportunity to study not only the system's use but how individual users made trips with both regular bicycles and e-bikes and the factors that influenced those trips. The study reported here found that only 22% of users accounted for 81% of the trips. Factors of speed and convenience played major roles in participants' decisions to use the system, and speed and comfort were the most influential factors in the selection of an e-bike rather than a regular bicycle. Most of the reported trips were class related, although e-bikes were used for a wide variety of trip purposes. Walking was the mode most displaced by the system; this result indicated that e-bikesharing expanded user mobility. User perceptions about bicycle types were explored also. This model of e-bikeshare was effective in its capability to attract users to both regular bicycles and e-bikes and to expand user mobility.
This study examines workers" mode-choice responses to a typical job decentralization policy implemented in China"s urban developmentgovernment job relocation (GJR) to new towns in the urban periphery. Broadly, the literature suggests that job decentralization tends to increase car commuting; however, little is known about the effects of China"s GJR initiatives on individuals" commuting mode choices. Using Kunming as a case study, this study examines how workers" commuting mode choices have shifted in response to GJR policy. Our study analyzes two travel survey datasets that span the job relocation process: 1) stated preference (SP) data on workers" anticipated mode choices after a move of workplace to a planned new town; and 2) revealed preference (RP) data on workers" actual choices of commuting mode after their jobs were moved. The findings suggest that after job relocation, workers" actual commuting modes shift from more sustainable modes towards cars. The determinants of workers" mode choices differ substantially between the hypothetical and actual setting of job relocation. The anticipated mode choices are largely determined by socio-demographic characteristics whereas the actual mode choices are strongly influenced by travel time and housing locations. The evidence from this study offers two important implications for future planning practice of job decentralization.First, planners and policy-makers should be skeptical about the transportation benefits of job decentralization. Second, while SP surveys can assist planners to predict individuals" mode-choice responses, the robustness of SP results should be carefully assessed before translating into the evidence base for informing job decentralization policy-makings.
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