Public bike system pricing and usage in Taipei

Abstract

Although widely implemented, public bike systems (PBSs) are facing a conflict between system usage and sustainable financing. The relationships between PBS pricing and usage must be clarified to formulate solutions for the conflict. This research used the Taipei PBS, YouBike, as a case study. A stated preference survey was conducted on metro passengers, and a binary logit model was applied to analyze the pricing effects of PBS on passengers' choice of using PBS as their transfer mode. A latent class model was also used to identify segment-specific preferences. The empirical data show that whether commuters used PBS as a transfer mode was highly dependent on the basic fee and basic period, but not on the variable fee after the basic period; the basic fee mattered to a commuter's choice more than the basic period; irregular PBS users were more sensitive to the basic fee than regular PBS users; and regular PBS users were more sensitive to the basic period than irregular PBS users. The current results broaden the understanding of how PBS pricing affects its usage and illustrate a pricing policy analysis for YouBike that considers sustainable financing and system usage.