Electric bicycles sharing: opportunities and environmental impacts

Abstract

Electric bicycles (E-bikes) are an emerging transportation technology with the potential to replace other available modes. In this work, we investigate the ability of an E-bike sharing program to compete with different modes of transportation and the resulting use-phase environmental impacts. A survey study on users of an E-bike program in Madison, Wisconsin was conducted to reveal modal shifts before and after access to the program’s membership. An environmental investigation based on well-to-wheel life cycle analysis, coupled with mode choice modeling reveals the users of this technology, the underlying modal shifts triggered by its usage, and the cascading environmental implications. The analysis reveals E-bike’s ability in attracting users, which translates into beneficial environmental impacts across five studied categories: energy consumption, greenhouse gas emission, particulate matter, sulfate and nitrate emissions. We further explore the implications of trip distance on the ability of E-bikes to compete with other modes of transportation, and the resultant environmental impacts. Finally, the electricity generation scheme is analyzed to showcase the dependency between environmental benefits of E-bike and the energy infrastructure it is operating under.