Evolutions of Individuals Use of Lyon's Bike Sharing System

TL;DR

This study analyzes five years of Lyon's bike sharing data, revealing diverse user engagement patterns and identifying demographic factors linked to long-term stable usage.

Contribution

It provides the first long-term analysis of individual user trajectories in a bike sharing system using a large dataset, uncovering distinct user behavior patterns.

Findings

60% of users stay less than a year with low activity

40% of users are more active and remain for several years

Stable users are predominantly middle-aged, male, and urban

Abstract

Bike sharing systems (BSS) have been growing fast all over the world, along with the number of articles analyzing such systems. However the lack of temporally large trip databases has limited the analysis of BSS users behavior in the long term. This article studies the V'elo'v - a BSS located in Lyon, France - subscribers commitment in the long term and the evolution of their usage over time. Using a 5-year dataset covering 121,000 long-term distinct users, we show the heterogeneous individual trajectories masked by the overall system stability. Users follow two main trajectories: about 60% remain in the system for at most one year, showing a low median activity (47 trips); the remaining 40% correspond to more active users (median activity of 96 trips in their first year) that remain continuously active for several years (mean time = 2.9 years). This latter class exhibits a relatively stable activity, decreasing slightly over the years. We show that middle-aged, male and urban users are over represented among the 'stable' users.