A Study on the Improvement of Public Bicycle Services
Focused on South Korean Cases
Yong-Wook Kim and Tea-Seong Lim
Department of Sport Science, Hanyang University, Ansan-si, Republic of Korea
Keywords: Public Health, Public Bicycle Service, Bicycle-Sharing.
Abstract: This study analyzes public bicycle service trends in Korea. First, several cases of small Korean cities with the
highest number of public bicycles were researched. The research results showed that bicycles were used 2,152
times a day with an average of 69 min spent on using the vehicle. Second, the public bicycle service in
Daejeon, a metropolitan in Korea, was analyzed. Factors considered in the utilization rate of bicycles were
neighboring schools, subway stations, and parks. When calculating the expected utilization rate, ten stations
with low usage were assumed to be relocated. In this case, it was confirmed that the utilization rate increased
by 34.00%.
1 INTRODUCTION
Korea introduced its first public bicycle service in
October 2008 after benchmarking the ‘Velib’ system
of France. The service was launched in Changwon, a
regional city with 500,000 residents (S. W. Ha.,
2011). Situated on a flatland with few hills,
Changwon is Korea’s first planned city where people
live relatively close to their workplaces. First, the
local government installed and operated public
bicycle service; however, now a subordinate public
entity is responsible for its maintenance and operati-
on. As the city received credit for its successful public
bicycle service, other local governments began to
introduce such services in their own regions.
Currently, 45 local governments provide 12,453
bicycles for the public through such services. Local
governments can enjoy many benefits when their
citizens use public bicycles often (D. J. Kim, et al.,
2014), which include: fewer cars on the road resulting
in improved traffic flow (C. R. Ye, 2011), significant
reduction in CO2 emissions (H. J. Kwak, K. S. Jung,
2008), healthier citizens due to continual use of bicy-
cles resulting in reduced public health expenditures,
and many more. Comparing the number of patients
visiting hospitals during the period of introducing
public bicycle in each city provides an interesting
result. In Changwon, the rate of patient increase
decreased to 0.67% in 2009 from 1.79% in 2008 when
public bicycle was introduced. In Ansan, the rate
reduced to 0.98% in 2013 from 1.67% in 2012 (Korea
Index website). If you look at the rate of Daejeon
which is the object of this research, it is more reliable.
In Daejeon, the rate was -3.73% in 2012 from 5.92%
in 2011 (as shown in Fig. 1). It’s improbable to
conclude that public bicycles directly reduce the
number of patients in cities. However, it is well
known that regular exercise is good for health
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website),
and no one can deny that public bicycle service has
positive effect in regular exercising.
Therefore, policies encouraging more citizens to
use the service should be established. Public bicycles
can replace short-distance transportation so long as
the flow of human traffic is considered when
installing and operating bicycle stations to optimize
utilization. In Korea, public bicycle stations are
mainly located in public sites or areas with large
floating populations (J. Y. Lee, et al., 2012). When
stations attract more users, more bicycle stands are
installed to cope with the increase in usage. In
consideration of the installation of a new station,
citizens’ demand is still a top priority, along with
population flow and the feasibility of using a
particular site. Today, existing public data can be
used to compute an appropriate station location,
including many studies on the improvement of the
functioning public bicycle services (J. T. Wong, C. Y.
Cheng, 2015; S. Wada, et al., 2013; C. Etienne, O.
Latifa, 2014; M. B. Iderlina, 2015; S. Y. Han, et al.,
2013). This allows the calculation of a proper station
location by putting variables together. The purpose of
44
Kim, Y-W. and Lim, T-S.
A Study on the Improvement of Public Bicycle Services - Focused on South Korean Cases.
DOI: 10.5220/0006058400440050
In Proceedings of the 4th International Congress on Sport Sciences Research and Technology Support (icSPORTS 2016), pages 44-50
ISBN: 978-989-758-205-9
Copyright
c
2016 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
Figure 1: Rate of changes in patients in Daejeon.
this study is to determine where to locate new stations
by using the existing public data and the way to
change existing locations.
2 PUBLIC BICYCLE-SHARING
IN KOREA
After the initial launch in Changwon in 2008, the
public bicycle service is now being operated by 45
local governments with a constant increase in service
adoption. As part of the central government’s bicycle
use promotion initiative launched in 2009, 45,675 km
of cycle tracks have been constructed in South Korea
(Bicycle Happy Sharing website). Today, bicycle
lanes play an active role in providing roads for
Table 1: Public Bicycle Services of Several South Korean
Cities.
City
Service Start Date
Number of Bicycles
In Operation
Daejeon OCT. 2011 2,615
Changwon AUG. 2008 16,611
Ansan SEP. 2012 5,646
commuters in downtowns. Hiking and commuting
courses have been built to connect cities. Bicycle
paths now serve as arteries that allow bicycle users to
travel to most of the cities in the country (as shown in
Fig. 2).
Figure 2: Bikeways of Korea.
A Study on the Improvement of Public Bicycle Services - Focused on South Korean Cases
45
Table 1 shows local governments that operate more
than 200 public bicycles. In most of the cases, smart
phones are used to rent and return the bicycles.
Financial resources for operations are obtained from
bicycle rental fees, advertising revenues and health
management funds (J. Lee, et al., 2011). Since users
are highly satisfied with the service in most of the
cities, other local governments are considering the
introduction of the service and establishing
infrastructures required for cycle lanes (S. J. Choi,
2011).
3 DATA AND METHODOLOGY
Daejeon, a metropolitan in Korea, was chosen as a
study subject. The city’s public bicycle service called
“Tashu” was analyzed. Data accumulated for three
years from 2013 to 2014 were used for the analysis.
Factors affecting the use of public bicycles were
selected and structural equation modeling was used to
forecast the influences of and demands for the
bicycles. Neighboring schools, subway stations, and
parks, and the population of residences were chosen
as the factors, in consideration of the factors
suggested in preceding research (M. G. Javier, et al.,
2013; N. Gast, et al., 2015; J. T. Pai, S. Y. Pai, 2015;
Y. C. Yoon, B. Y. Cho, 2014). This research
calculates the expected rate of utilization by using
methods below. Factors used for this research are
subway stations, schools and parks. Select 8 local
candidates to find new a' where the rate of Point a
increases. Each point is named a1 to a8. Each local
candidate is located 0, 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270 and
315 degrees from north-up direction of points where
Point a to d moves (as shown in Fig. 3). At this point,
Distance d is (station.average)/4 of station distance.
This is due to opinions of public bicycle team of
Daejeon city. The team didn’t want moving too far
from the original stations. Each expected rate of
utilization was calculated from a1 to a8, and factors
used are as follows.
distance.subway(d.su) : Distance to the nearest subway station from Point a
distance.school(d.sc) : Distance to the nearest school from Point a
distance.park(d.pa) : Distance to the nearest park from Point a
influence.subway(i.su) : Influence of subway
influence.school(i.sc) : Influence of school
influence.park(i.pa) : Influence of park
distance.average(d.av) : Average moving distance of users
station.average(s.av) : Average distance between stations
distance.subway1~8 : Distance to the nearest subway station from Point a1 to 8
distance.school1~8 : Distance to the nearest school from Point a1 to 8
distance.park1~8 : Distance to the nearest park from Point a1 to 8
Original.Number(o.nb) : Original Number of Bicycles Rented
New.Number(n.nb) : New Number of Bicycles Rented
((distance.average - distance.subway)influence.subway + (distance.average - distance.school)
influence.school + (distance.average - distance.park) influence.park) : Original.Number = ((distance.average -
distance.subway1) influence.subway + (distance.average - distance.school1) influence.school +
(distance.average - distance.park1) influence.park) : New.Number (f.1)
Therefore,
n.nb1 = (((d.av- d.su) i.su + (d.av- d.sc) i.sc + (d.av- d.pa) i.pa) ((d.av- d.su1) i.su + (d.av- d.sc1) i.sc +
(d.av- d.pa1) i.pa)) / o.nb (f.2)
However, when distance.subway, distance.school, distance.park are bigger than distance.average, use
distance.subway, distance.school, distance.park for distance.average.
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Figure 3: local candidates of stations.
4 RESULTS
Data related to the use of 202 stations provided by the
Daejeon city were analyzed. On average, public
bicycles were used 2,152 times a day with an average
rental time of 69 min (Daejeon Public Bike website).
The utilization rate during weekends was registered
14.85% while weekdays witnessed an increased rate
of 85.15%. When the daily average was compared for
weekends and weekdays, the daily average during
weekdays was higher with 401 more occurrences of
rental cases. By seasons, spring (April, May and June)
recorded the highest rate with 34.40% whereas winter
(December, January and February) had the lowest
utilization rate of 10.58% (Table 2.). This means that
different weather conditions in the two seasons affect
the frequency of bicycle use (D. J. Kim, et al., 2012).
The time of a day when public bicycles are used most
frequently is 6 PM followed by 8 AM during
weekdays (Table 3.). This suggests that weekday
users use ‘Tashu’ for commuting to work or school,
while weekend users use the service for leisure
activities.
Table 4 shows the analysis of how often users
return public bicycles to stations different from where
they were rented. Bicycle traffic to schools, parks,
and subway stations are as follows: traffic into and
out of schools was 32.14% and 59.02% in the
morning, respectively, while traffic into and out of
subway stations was registered at 28.29% and
24.47%, respectively, in the morning. By contrast, in
the afternoon, bicycle traffic into and out of schools
was 67.86% and 40.98, respectively, and subway
stations saw bicycle traffic flow in of 71.71% and
flow out of 75.53%, respectively. It was confirmed
that public bicycles are mostly used as a means to
commute to work or schools. Public bicycles’ traffic
to and from parks was recorded to be 19.51% and
19.04% in the morning, respectively, while that in the
afternoon was 80.49% and 80.96%, respectively,
showing little difference between inflows and
outflows.
To predict demand, factors affecting demand and the
frequency of use should be compared. The three
factors selected as shown above were set as
independent variables and the frequency of use was
adopted as dependent variables when structural
equation modeling was used for analysis. When it
comes to standardized path coefficients, ‘frequency
of use distances to neighboring schools’ was
0.499, ‘frequency of use distances to subway
stations’ 0.879, and ‘frequency of use distances to
Table 2: Monthly Rental Frequency Average (2014-2015).
Month
JAN. FEB. MAR. APR.
MAY JUN.
Number of Bicycles Rented 23,156 29,460 57,101 80,005 100,877 89,332
Percentage Out of the Year 2.95% 3.75% 7.27% 10.18% 12.84% 11.37%
Month
JUL. AUG. SEP. OCT. NOV. DEC.
Number of Bicycles Rented 87,778 61,071 80,225 88,044 58,013 30,526
Percentage Out of the Year 11.17% 7.77% 10.21% 11.21% 7.38% 3.89%
A Study on the Improvement of Public Bicycle Services - Focused on South Korean Cases
47
Table 3: Daily Rental Frequency Average by Time (2013-2014, unit: %).
Time 12AM 1AM 2AM 3AM 4AM 5AM 6AM 7AM 8AM 9AM 10AM 11AM
Weekday
Percentage
(per day)
0.80 0.07 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.88 1.52 4.61 8.99 4.55 3.33 3.25
Weekend
Percentage
(per day)
1.18 0.10 0.02 0.01 0.00 0.71 1.07 1.95 3.54 4.18 3.87 4.20
Time 12PM 1PM 2PM 3PM 4PM 5PM 6PM 7PM 8PM 9PM 10PM 11PM
Weekday
Percentage
(per day)
4.02 4.19 4.16 4.61 5.17 6.79 10.85 7.57 6.19 6.60 6.46 5.38
Weekend
Percentage
(per day)
5.43 6.01 6.39 6.70 6.93 7.90 7.97 6.83 6.52 6.53 6.24 5.70
Table 4: Rental Percentage of Bicycles per Major
Area(unit: %).
Area
Percentage of
Bicycles being
Returned
Percentage of
Bicycles being
Rented Out
AM PM AM PM
Stations Located
Near Schools
32.14 67.86 59.02 40.98
Stations Located
Near Subway
Stations
28.29 71.71 24.47 75.53
Stations Located
Near Parks
19.51 80.49 19.04 80.96
parks’ was 0.572. ‘The population of residences’ was
did not affect the frequency of use.
Many studies have proposed algorithms that can
be applied to forecast frequency rates (Y. Seo, et al.,
2015; L. Chen, et al., 2015; Y. Li, et al., 2015; Y. S.
Noh, M. S. Do, 2014). This study, by contrast, adopts
a verified standardized path coefficient to predict the
usage frequency of new stations to be installed. It is
possible to calculate projected frequency rates by
using three independent variables that can affect the
rates. The formula used here is f-2. The same method
was applied to the calculation of the relocation of the
five least used stations. The result is shown in Table
5. It was estimated that the relocation would increase
the overall usage rate by 34.00%.
Table 5: Daily Simulation Results of Bicycles Usage
Frequency Depending on Original and Moved Location
(2013-2015).
Station ID
Original Station
Location
Moved Station
Location
027 28 39
059 32 45
129 58 93
007 63 75
157 69 83
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5 DISCUSSION
Koreans relatively do more exercising, but when
considering those in their 30s and 40s who are major
participants of economic activities, it is problematic.
As they are busy with their work and due to lack of
time, 60% of them never exercise (Korea Index
website). Bicycle commuting easily provides them
time to exercise. This is the most positive effect of
public bicycle service.
This research removes complex factors and uses
methods to increase the rate of utilization in a simple
way. However, the research to determine station
location is not that simple. There are a lot of
complex factors to be considered. The endless
complexity can be calculated with the development
of computers. Therefore, additional research to
compare the method used in this research with
methods with complex factors used is required.
Simpler method can provide more certain results.
That is why the method to increase the rate of
utilizing public bicycle service confirmed in this
research is very useful. We can search new stations
where the rate of utilization is expected with
analysis considering 3 factors. More accurate
prediction is possible when adding factors including
floating population, income levels, gender and ages.
When measuring the actual utilization rate of
stations with possibility of new installation or
relocation and applying correction value to
algorithm of this research, more effective results can
be provided. Cities planning to introduce public
bicycle service can use methods to determine station
location suggested by this research. They can select
points expected to have high rate of utilization after
first installation and locate stations. positive effect
of public bicycle service.
Mountainous areas account for more than 80%
of Korea, and the favorite exercise for Koreans is
hiking (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism,
2013). The next popular exercise is walking. They
do exercise that they can easily enjoy, and riding
bicycle is also easy. However, there are many slopes
in old cities, and the structure of roads are
inconvinient to ride bicycles. Bicycle roads have
been built in planning stages of new towns, and in
old cities, the roads are mandatory for
redevelopment. The Government is pushing forward
with a national project to connect all cities with
bicycle roads, and bicycle use will continue to
increase in Korea (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure
and Transport website).
6 CONCLUSIONS
This study suggested measures to relocate ten public
bicycle stations currently being operated in the
Daejeon city. The relocation is projected to increase
the frequency from the current 250 to 335. In
addition, if ten more stations are installed, 85
additional occurrences of bicycle use can be
expected, which would increase the frequency by
34.00%. The values were statistically estimated
without considering the operating workforce,
budgets, or influences among stations. Field tests will
be required for correct comparison and verification.
Therefore, this study proposes, first, a preliminary
analysis of new locations for the stations. Second, it
is suggested that the relocation method proposed in
this study be applied to the field to verify the results,
and then a follow-up study be conducted to check if
actual changes are made to the public bicycle service.
We make an inquiry to a public servant involved
in public bicycle service. What are the standards of
selecting stations? The answer was possible areas and
places without complaints which are based on
administrative convenience. As a result, stations are
installed at places with low utilization rate and public
resources are wasted. Basic simulation to determine
installation points is required. In addition, algorithm
to select station location by comparing the actual rate
and expected rate of utilization after operation should
be improved.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by the Research Foundation
of Hanyang University by the Hanyang University of
the Republic of Korea(HY-2016-731).
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers
for their helpful comments on an earlier version of
this paper.
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