Promoting sustainable mobility by modelling bike sharing usage in Lyon

This paper aims to present a modelling of bike sharing demand at station level in the city of Lyon. Multiple linear regression models were used in order to predict the daily flows of each station. The data used in this project consists of over 6 million bike sharing trips recorded in 2011. The built environment variables used in the model are determined in a buffer zone of 300 meters around each bike sharing station. The results show that bike sharing is principally used for commuting purposes. An interesting finding is that the bike sharing network characteristics are important parameters to improve the prediction quality of the models. The present results could be useful for others cities which want to adopt a bike sharing system and also for a better planning and operation of existing systems. The approach in this paper can be useful for estimating car-sharing demand.