Sustainability in bicycle sharing systems: evidences of travel mode choice changings in Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 1. Introduction Passenger transport, as well as freight transport, plays a key role in urban environments. However, in recent years, there has been an increase in the levels of motorized individual transport in relation to public transport (Observatório das Metrópoles, 2012), imposing externalities on society, economy and the environment. Urban transport in general, especially motorized individual transport, requires the use of fossil fuels, generating thus negative environmental impacts, such as the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG), air pollutants, noise, public health problems, road damage, accidents, traffic congestion and the excessive use of public spaces in cities. These problems represent challenges to public authorities and transport planners, who must address such externalities in order to promote a better quality of life to local population. In this way, this theme has attracted the attention of the academy in the search of sustainable solutions for urban passenger transport (Campos, 2006; Litman, 2007; Guimarães & Leal Junior, 2017). Among the proposed solutions, bicycle sharing has emerged as a viable and sustainable transportation alternative and has received attention in recent years (Wang & Zhou, 2017).