Visitor bikeshare usage: tracking visitor spatiotemporal behavior using big data

Abstract

Bikeshare programs are a popular, convenient, and sustainable mode of transportation that provide a range of benefits to urban communities such as reduction in carbon emissions, decreased travel times, financial savings, and heightened physical activity. Although, tourists are especially inclined to use bikeshare to explore a destination as the programs are a convenient, cheap, flexible, and an active alternative to vehicles and mass transit little research or attention has focused on visitor usage. As such the current study investigated the spatial-temporal usage patterns of bikeshare by visitors to an urban community using GPS based big data (N = 353,733). The results revealed differential usage patterns between visitors and local residents based on user provided ZIP Codes using a 50 mile geometric circular buffer around the urban destination. The visitors and residents significantly varied on numerous trip behaviors including route selection, time of rental, checkout/check-in locations, distance, speed, duration, and physical activity intensity. The user patterns uncovered suggest visitors primarily use bikeshare for leisure based urban exploration, compared to residents’ primary use of bikeshare to be public transportation related. Implications for bikeshare, urban planning, and tourism management are provided aimed at delivering a more sustainable and richer visitor experience.

Keywords:

• Bikeshare
• cycling
• tourist tracking
• GPS
• big data
• bikeshare tourism

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Dan Remington and The Indianapolis Cultural Trail staff for their enduring support of the study. Further, the support provided by Prof Jeffery Wilson, Assoc Prof Aniruddha Banerjee, and Assoc Prof Philip Troped was instrumental to the success of the project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Richard J. Buning

Richard Buning is a Lecturer in the tourism discipline at the University of Queensland, Australia. His research interests include sport tourism and event management. Within this area, his research agenda is focused on the progressive experiences of participant based active travel for individuals, clubs, events, and communities.

Vijay Lulla

Vijay Lulla is an assistant professor in the department of Geography at IUPUI. His research interests include remote sensing, GIS, geospatial analysis, and spatial databases. He is primarily interested in developing socio-technical and eco-technical methods for studying complex problems.