North America's First E-Bikeshare

Abstract

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.

Differences of Cycling Experiences and Perceptions between E-Bike and Bicycle Users in the United States

“…Again, they found that e-bike users tended to replace car trips, even among conventional bicyclists. Three small-sample studies [13,20,25] found that e-bike users do indeed use e-bikes for broader trip purposes than bicycles. Since those studies were published, the e-bike market has grown and become more mainstream, with major international manufacturers entering the market and conventional bicycle companies adopting an e-assist product line.…”

“…With power assistance, many barriers to cycling are reduced or overcome, including increasing age, physical limitations, hilly terrain, a lack of time, and a lack of fitness or the perception of fitness that is needed to cycle [1,13,14,[19][20][21][22]. While power assistance makes riding easier, riders still gain some physical activity benefits by pedaling.…”

Estudo exploratório da demanda potencial para um sistema de compartilhamento de bicicletas pedelecs

“…No entanto, as bicicletas elétricas do tipo pedelec praticamente eliminam esse problema, já que elas possuem um motor elétrico que auxilia a pessoa Langford et al (2013) analisaram o primeiro ano de uso do mesmo sistema.…”

Usage Patterns of Electric Bicycles: An Analysis of the WeBike Project

“…While much of the emphasis in the past has been on electric automobiles, attention has recently been increasingly focused on electric bicycles, which have tremendous potential as a zero-point-source-emission solution for urban transportation [2,10,11]. E-bikes are rapidly gaining acceptance as a desirable and viable alternative, and there is increasing municipal and consumer readiness to invest in cycling in general and in e-bikes specifically [12][13][14].…”