Assessing the impacts of free-floating shared micromobility services on docked bike-sharing: Insights from the case studies of Poznań and Brussels

Abstract

For many years docked bike-sharing systems in hundreds of cities were developed under the auspices of local public authorities, and thus within a regulated perspective. Then, within a short time window, new operators appeared on the streets with an offer of free-floating e-scooters, e-bikes and e-mopeds. These free-floating micromobility services were often introduced hastily, sometimes without prior consultation with local authorities. The main motive for their introduction was financial profit, rather than integration into the local transport eco-system and mobility policy framework. The aim of this study is to explore the impact of the introduction of free-floating shared micromobility services (and especially e-scooters) on docked bike-sharing systems and to address whether these could have been the main reason for the closure or decline of some of them. We aimed to examine this in two different cities (i.e., Poznań, Poland and Brussels, Belgium), where different models of docked bike-sharing were used. We used different sources of data: aggregated rentals of shared bikes for a time span of over 10 years, disaggregated data (bike station level) and interviews with stakeholders. Our analysis suggests that the introduction of e-scooters to both cities contributed to a decline in shared bike rentals, which amounted to around 40 % in Brussels and 80 % in Poznań before the scheme's eventual closure in 2022. However, the usage decline in Brussels was much smaller than the actual usage of free-floating e-scooters and e-bikes. It should be noted that other factors have likely contributed to the decline in Poznań being much greater than in Brussels, such as restrictions on bike-sharing use during the Covid-19 pandemic and insufficient maintenance of the bicycles. In addition, differentiated spatial patterns were also observed. For instance, in Poznań the highest decrease in rentals was observed in the city centre, whereas the lowest decrease was seen in the case of a bike station close to a transport hub with train, tram and bus stations. This research can be useful, in deciding how to develop resilient shared micromobility systems in a complex and constantly changing urban transport eco-system.