Profit versus Sustainability in Bikeshare. (June 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Litan, Huiyi; Rong, Ke; Wu, Youran; Xie, Danxia; Zhang, Hanzhe; Zhao, Dong
• Is Part Of: Sustainable cities and society. Volume 93(2023)
• Publication Date: 2023-06
• Subjects: Bikeshare economy -- game model -- platform strategies -- accessibility -- sustainable development; Sustainable urban development -- Periodicals; Sustainable buildings -- Periodicals; Urban ecology (Sociology) -- Periodicals; 307.76
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scs.2023.104512
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2210-6707

Abstract

Highlights: Bikeshare has side effects on resource waste and environmental problems. Our game-theoretic model can simulate and explain the growth of bikeshare. Bikeshare firms with more investments prioritize quantity over quality. Bikeshare firms with a higher quality focus are more likely to fail in market. Sustainable city design needs to facilitate a sustainable growth of bike sharing. Abstract: Bicycling is a green transportation mode that is essential for the sustainability of population-dense cities. Bikeshare is an emerging business-to-consumer (B2C) model that sustains bicycling and complements other public transits. By 2021, the number of shared bikes in China had grown to 437 million and its revenue to 1.31 billion US dollars. Previous research has focused on businesses' profit-maximizing decisions but has not considered the societal sustainability impacts of these decisions that could produce an excessive number of bikes and often conflict with the environment. In other words, sustainable cities need a sustainable growth of bike sharing. Our research fills this gap by building a novel game-theoretic model in which a bikeshare firm will make decisions regarding the trade-off between the accessibility (quantity) and sustainability (quality) of its bikes to maximize its rate of return. Our analysis deduces that the firm with more financial capital attains higher platform performance by prioritizing accessibility over sustainability. We offer government policies, such as number limitation, oversupply taxation, bike infrastructure investment, and technology advancement subsidy, to correct firms' excessive drive for profit over sustainability. These policies help address the Sustainable Development Goal 11 to achieve sustainable cities and communities.