2 BACKGROUND
2.1 Bike-sharing Systems and Main
Issues Related to Their Design and
Use
Bike-sharing system is a system that allows people
to rent a bike at one of the automated stations, go for
a ride and return the bike to any other station
installed in the same city. As noted in (Shaheen S.A.
et.al., 2010), all bike-sharing systems work on the
basis of a simple principle: people use bikes as
frequently as circumstances dictate, without the
expenditures and responsibilities that they would
have borne if they owned these bikes. The evolution
of bike-sharing systems has already spanned four
generations, the systems of the last – fourth –
generation present the advanced digital frameworks
equipped with smart sensors that completely track
all user actions in the system (Lozano A et.al.,
2018). However, in the design and operation of these
systems there are still certain challenges that can be
conditionally divided into three large classes
discussed below (Shaheen S.A. et.al., 2010).
The problems of the first class are related to the
design and redesign of bike-sharing networks.
Design of bike-sharing networks, including planning
the layout of stations, determining their number and
capacity, is a complex process that must take into
account many factors, from topographic features of
the city, forecasting user demand and ending with
the principles of social justice (Lozano A et.al.,
2018). These issues have to be addressed not only
during the initial design of the network, but also
during its operation, when it is necessary to make
improvements to existing layout schemes.
The problems of the second class are related to
incentivizing users of bike-sharing systems.
Stimulating users is a necessary part of the bike
rental service in conditions of busy stations (for
example, when there are no bikes or free docks at
the stations, while the user wants to take the bike or
return it) (Raviv T. et.al., 2013). User incentives, as
a rule, are based on a flexible pricing policy,
depending on the current situation (time of day,
weather or seasonal events, calendar events). The
solution to these issues is based not only on the data
generated by the bike-sharing system itself, but also
on data received from external services, for example,
weather data, traffic jams, repairs carried out on the
city streets, etc.
The problems of the third class are related to the
rebalancing of bike-sharing stations (reallocations of
bikes between stations). These problems are caused
by so-called commuting patterns as, for example,
regular trips of citizens to work, as a result of which
there are not enough bikes in the morning in the
residential areas of the city, and not enough in the
evening in the business areas of the city
(Oppermann M. et.al., 2018; Zhou X., 2015;
Papazek P. et.al., 2014). The reallocation of bikes
among the stations should, on the one hand, match
the predicted needs of the stations, and on the other
hand, minimize the cost of managing the bike park,
including the cost of transporting bikes (Raviv T.
et.al., 2013).
In the next section, we will consider analytical,
predictive, and optimization models and methods
aimed at solving the listed three classes of problems.
Despite of the fact that bike-sharing services have
been deployed in hundreds of cities around the
world for a long time, nevertheless, the development
of such models and methods remains relevant.
2.2 Analysis, Prediction and
Optimization Models to Address
the Main Issues of Bike-sharing
Systems
Models for designing and redesigning bike-sharing
networks are offered in (Frade I. & Ribeiro A.,
2015; Yuan M. et.al., 2019; Kloimüllner C. et.al.,
2017; Park C. et.al., 2017; Wang J. et.al., 2016;
Celebi D. et.al., 2018). The authors of (Frade I. &
Ribeiro A., 2015) offer an optimization model that
ensures maximum satisfaction of user demand with
taking into account restrictions in the cost and
maintenance of the system. The model is a target
function where the input variables of which are
demand, maximum and minimum throughput of
stations, cost of bikes, operating costs and budget.
The output of the model– the number of stations and
bikes in each zone of the city, the throughput of the
stations, the number of bikes movements, annual
income and expenses. The model does not indicate
the specific location of the stations, but determines
their number in each zone. The authors of (Yuan M.
et.al., 2019) argue that the disadvantage of the above
model is the representation of demand as a fixed
value. So they offer another model of mixed integer
linear programming in which demand is a stochastic
variable. Their model gives not only the number of
stations at the output, but also their locations, based
on the concept of subjective distance. The authors of
(Kloimüllner C. et.al., 2017) also use mixed integer
linear programming, but instead of separate stations
consider enlarged geographical cells into which the
city is divided. The authors of (Park C. et.al., 2017)