Bicycling

Shared Mobility: An Overview of Definitions, Current Practices, and Its Relationship to Mobility on Demand and Mobility as a Service

Susan Shaheen
Adam Cohen
2021

Shared mobility—the shared use of a vehicle, bicycle, or other travel mode—is an innovative transportation strategy that enables users to have short-term access to a transportation mode on an as-needed basis. Shared mobility encompasses a variety of innovative and emerging passenger and last-mile delivery modes, such as bikesharing; carsharing; courier network services (CNS); for-hire services (e.g., taxis and transportation network companies (TNCs), also known as ridesourcing...

Public Bikesharing in North America During a Period of Rapid Expansion: Understanding Business Models, Industry Trends & User Impacts, MTI Report 12-29

Susan Shaheen
Adam Cohen
Martin, Elliot
Chan, Nelson
Pogodzinski, Mike
2014

Public bikesharing—the shared use of a bicycle fleet—is an innovative transportation strategy that has recently emerged in major cities around the world, including North America. Information technology (IT)-based bikesharing systems typically position bicycles throughout an urban environment, among a network of docking stations, for immediate access. Trips can be one-way, round-trip, or both, depending on the operator. Bikesharing can serve as a first-and-last mile connector to other modes, as well as for both short and long distance destinations. In 2012, 22 IT-based public...

Pedal Power: Operational Models, Opportunities, and Obstacles of Bike Lending in North America

Susan Shaheen
Wolfe, Brooke
Adam Cohen
2025

Bike lending offers a service that enables individuals to borrow bicycles for short-term use (i.e., ranging from 2 hours to 36 months), typically from designated locations within cities, campuses, or communities. Unlike bikesharing systems that typically rely on automated kiosks and/or undocked and free-floating devices for public access, bike lending involves a managed program with staff, similar to a library model. These programs can be administered by community organizations, bike shops, public libraries, and other local entities. They are typically community- or membership-based, with...

Bike Lending in North America: Understanding Business Models, User Acceptance, Social Equity, and Public Safety

Susan Shaheen
Schmidt, Brooke
Adam Cohen
2024

Bike lending allows participants to borrow a bike similar to borrowing a book from a library. However, there is a lack of documented literature on this strategy. This research attempts to understand and characterize the existence of bike lending programs in North America through a literature review, census of bike lending programs (n=55), expert interviews (n=24), a survey of bike lending operators (n=31), and two focus groups with bike lending participants (n=12) conducted between January 2024 through April 2024. The census identified and characterized bike lending programs in North...

Managing the Curb: Understanding the Impacts of On-Demand Mobility on Public Transit, Micromobility, and Pedestrians

Susan Shaheen
Martin, Elliot
Adam Cohen
Broader, Jacquelyn
Davis, Richard
2026

In recent years, innovative mobility and shifts in travel and consumption behavior are changing how people access and use the curb. Shared mobility—the shared use of a vehicle, bicycle, scooter, or other mode—coupled with outdoor dining, curbside pick-up, and robotic delivery are creating new needs related to the planning, management, and enforcement of curb access. This study examines curb planning and management from several angles, such as safety, social equity, and multimodal connections. This research employs a multi-method approach to identify the changing needs for curb space...

Shared Micromobility: Policy and Practices in the United States

Adam Cohen
Susan Shaheen
2021

Shared Micromobility - the shared use of a bicycle, scooter, or other low-speed mode - is an innovative transportation strategy that enables users short-term access to a transportation mode on an as-needed basis. Shared micromobility includes various service models and transportation modes that can meet diverse traveler needs, such as station-based bikesharing (a bicycle picked-up from and returned to any station or kiosk) and dockless bikesharing and scooter sharing (a bicycle or scooter picked up and returned to any location). Shared micromobility has the potential to offer communities...

Local Government Strategies to Improve Shared Micromobility Infrastructure

Susan Shaheen
Adam Cohen
Martin, Elliot
2024

Shared micromobility (bikesharing and scooter sharing) experienced market growth since 2021, rebounding from the pandemic across markets in the US, Mexico, and Canada. In partnership with the North American Bikeshare and Scootershare Association (NABSA) and Toole Design, researchers at the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC) at UC Berkeley have collaborated on the data collection and analysis of the shared micromobility industry metrics through a series of annual reports beginning in 2019. This includes a series of operator and agency surveys.1 Most recently, TSRC...

Lead with the Helmet

Adam Cohen
Martin, Elliot
2016

Bikesharing systems offer access to a shared network of bicycles deployed on public streets. Present-day systems use information technology to manage user interactions, and to manage the fleet of bicycles. Bikesharing systems can be station-based, in which users access bicycles at kiosks with automatic locks, or free-floating, in which self-locking bicycles are accessed within a geo-fenced area. Bikesharing generally permits point-to-point travel, providing users with flexibility to use the service as a first-mile/last-mile connection or as its own means from origin to destination....

Bikesharing and Bicycle Safety

Martin, Elliot
Adam Cohen
Susan Shaheen
Botha, Jan
2016

The growth of bikesharing in the United States has had a transformative impact on urban transportation. Major cities have established large bikesharing systems, including Boston, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, New York City, Salt Lake City, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Washington DC, and others. These systems began operating as early as 2010, and no fatalities have occurred within the US as of this writing. However, three have happened in North America—two in Canada and one in Mexico. Bikesharing has some qualities that appear inherently unsafe for bicyclists. Most...

Public Bikesharing In North America : Early Operator and User Understanding [research brief].

Susan Shaheen
Adam Cohen
Martin, Elliot
Finson, Rachel S.
2012

Public bikesharing—the shared use of a bicycle fleet—is an innovative transportation strategy that has recently emerged in North America. Bikesharing systems typically position bicycles at docking stations for immediate access. Trips can be one-way or round-trip. As of January 2012, 15 information technology (IT)-based, public bikesharing systems had emerged in the United States—accounting for 172,070 users and 5,238 bicycles, and four IT-based programs accounted for 44,352 users and 6,235 bicycles in Canada. This study documents the state of public bikesharing in the U.S. and Canada and...