The Electric Bicycle: Worldwide Research Trends

Abstract

The bicycle has gone from being an old-fashioned recreational product to a less polluting means of transport and a compact, ultra-light personal mobility tool. This is how electrical bicycles will be used as the pillar that could support individual public transport in large cities worldwide. The objective of this manuscript is to detect how worldwide research on the electric bicycle is being developed, and, especially, around which scientific domains is it clustered, to finally identify the main trends in the field. This study has been carried out based on the Scopus database, where all the publications related to the topic of the electric bicycle have been analyzed up to the year 2017. Therefore, research on the global research trends of this topic was conducted. Its evolution over time shows that since 2008 the growth of publications is much higher than in the previous period. The main countries are China and the USA, and it can be inferred that there are two major trend countries with high environmental awareness, which also have a large population and that the electric bicycle is a suitable and sustainable form of transport. Among the main scientific fields, engineering leads in research. The keyword analysis shows that the central theme is electric, then battery and motor stand out. A community detection was applied to detect the six main clusters of this research, largely dedicated to the following topics: Transportation-Environment, Electrical Engineering, Safety, Batteries, Sporting Goods-Urban Planning, and Mechanical Engineering. This manuscript shows that global research trends about the electric bicycle are increasing, and that it should be considered a means of sustainable urban transport and will therefore contribute to energy saving and sustainable energy.

The Role of Smart Contracts in Sustainability: Worldwide Research Trends

“…Several studies have measured the overlap between databases and the impact of using different data sources for specific research fields on bibliometric indicators, demonstrating a larger number of journals indexed by Scopus compared to WoS [35]. Regarding the overlap, 84% of the WoS titles are also indexed in Scopus, while only 54% of the Scopus titles are indexed in WoS [36]. For example, some studies related to citations in the papers conclude that each database covered 90% of the citations in the other database when the citation period is limited to Scopus citation coverage for 1996 and beyond [37].…”

“…The analysis of the keywords with which the works are indexed is one of the most relevant aspects in bibliometric analysis [36,38]. If the results obtained are analyzed according to keywords, and a cloud word is made with on-line software (see Figure 6) a strong relationship can be observed between blockchain technology, smart grids (SGs), and smart energy grids, as well as virtual currencies or electronic money (Ethereum, Electronic Money).…”

Connected Bike-smart IoT-based Cycling Training Solution

“…The returned value of this function is converted from lbs. to kg and scaled by 10 for a single decimal precision as seen in equation (1).…”

“…To fight this phenomenon, fitness seems like a handy solution, especially for the advantage of having a personal trainer that can monitor the activity and offer guidance throughout the training. The electric bicycle is a trendy solution, as it is presented in [1]. However, most cyclists either amateur or professionals do not have this opportunity, making it harder to improve and reach specific goals.…”

Are Personal Electric Vehicles Sustainable? A Hybrid E-Bike Case Study

“…High: Up to tens of thousands € Medium: Hundreds to thousands of € * Low to medium: Hundreds of € * * According to estimations; ** dependent on charger and battery type; 1 according to references [2,17,19,20], based on average values for the sum of main pollutants: CO (carbon monoxide), NOx (nitrogen oxides), VOC (volatile organic compounds), and PM10 (particulate matter that have 10 micrograms per cubic meter or less in diameter); 2 according to reference [28]; 3 according to references [29,30]; 4 according to reference [26], based on average values for car/bus and e-bike, up to 5 km; 5 according to reference [21], based on average values; 6 according to references [31,32]; 7 according to reference [25]; 8 according to reference [33].…”