Locally Designed Campus Smart Bike Sharing System: Lessons Learned and Design Optimization for Thailand

Bike-sharing systems have been widely implemented in around 700 cities worldwide since the 2000s. The quick expansion is due to the growing concerns over environmental impacts and climate change problems. Bicycles are deemed to be a promising mode of transportation for achieving urban sustainability and sustainability in higher education. Sustainable transportation is an important factor in achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. In Thailand, a bike-sharing service was first launched in Bangkok in 2012. However, bike-sharing in Thailand heavily relied on systems designed and operated by international companies. Many systems have not been very successful and some were discontinued. We discuss lessons learned from a locally designed bike-sharing system and its optimization for a Thai university. A pilot-scale of public bicycles was launched and over 24,000 trips were observed in six months. Most trips were 0–10 minutes and peak hours were in the morning, which means most students picked up the public bike on the last-mile based on study timetable. From heat maps of bicycle usage, nearly educational buildings and connecting transit points had the highest departure and arrival rates.