Saturday, April 24, 2010

Bike-sharing Cost-Benefit Analysis

Every now and then, we at The Bike-sharing Blog will get a question from a researcher on cost-benefit analysis of bike-sharing. Now we have one to share! The Washington, D.C. region competed for a Federal funding opportunity (more) for its upcoming regional bike-sharing service, unfortunately to no avail. But that doesn't mean the data ain't good!

The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (the D.C. area's regional metropolitan planning organization) has posted the bike-sharing service's cost-benefit analysis. The analysis looks positive as the potential revenues generated by this service would far outweigh the costs. A sustainable bike-sharing service for the D.C. region, and other regions in the U.S. and abroad, looks probable.

Bike-sharing geeks, enjoy!

image credit: HSE

3 comments:

parasal said...

Paul, many thanks for finding these docs. They are quite interesting. Sorry that I've only just now found them (in May).

Albert Nekimken
ebikeshareUSA

Jase said...

some of the assumptions seem, um, courageous.

5000 bikes that each get used 11 times a day???

i had no idea there was so much latent demand for cycling.

Erik Sandblom said...

Jase, the bikes in Lyon got used seven times a day initially. Maybe it's higher now. So 11 times per day is not unrealistic. For short trips, biking is often the fastest way to go, if there are bike stations nearby (or if you have your own bike!)