An Electric Fence-Based Intelligent Scheduling Method for Rebalancing Dockless Bike Sharing Systems

Abstract

With a new generation of bike sharing services emerging, the development of dockless bike sharing services results in considerable socioeconomic and environmental benefits but also creates new issues, such as inappropriate parking behaviors and bike imbalances. To solve the inappropriate parking problem, electric fences have been introduced to guide users to park bikes in designated zones. Considering the role of electric fences in restricting user parking behaviors, an electric fence-based intelligent scheduling method for rebalancing dockless bike sharing systems is proposed in this paper. As a dynamic method that considers the real-time usage of bike sharing systems, an electric fence adjusts its capacity based on real-time information, which guides users to return bikes to electric fences with greater urgency. Because existing approaches require prespecified models and are unable to consider all the intricacies in the dynamic optimization problem, a model-free intelligent scheduling approach based on deep Q-learning that can adapt to the changing distributions of customer arrivals, available bikes, bike locations, and user travel times is used to solve the problem. Finally, a case study involving Beihang University is employed, which shows that the method performs well in rebalancing the bike sharing system and improving the mean utilization (MU) and customer satisfaction (CS).

Public Bicycle Dispatch Method Based on Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Borrowing and Returning Demands

“…Furthermore, addressing the dispatching vehicles of public bicycles, a public bicycle rebalancing method considering the positioning of charging stations was proposed by Y. Wang et al, wherein electric vehicles are utilized as the carriers for bicycle dispatch [10]. To tackle improper parking issues, L. Jia et al introduced electric fences to guide users to park bicycles in designated areas, proposing an intelligent scheduling method for dockless bikesharing systems based on electric fences [44]. C. Ren et al presented a hybrid scheduling method incorporating trucks and users [45], solved by using the MLP-GA algorithm.…”

An Intelligent Rebalance System for Tidal Phenomenon of Dockless Bicycle-Sharing

“…In the SDBS system, each station has multiple fixed bicycle docks, which greatly limits the movement of the station and the increase of bicycles, and prevents users from renting and parking bicycles [15]. The DBS system deploys bicycle-sharing at flexible electric fences rather than fixed stations where users can park their bicycles anywhere near the fences [16]. However, numerous bicycles are parked on some fences, while others have few bicycles, resulting in the tidal phenomenon (no bicycles' renting and parking in the morning and evening peak hours).…”