Journal of Transport and Land Use

Impact of land use on bicycle usage: A big data-based spatial approach to inform transport planning

Yi Zhao

Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School

Qiaowen Lin

China University of Geosciences

Shangan Ke

Central China Normal University

Yanghang Yu

Yunnan University of Finance and Economics

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.2020.1499

Keywords: Land use determinants, Bicycling behavior, Panel spatial regression, Sustainable development, Urban planning, China.

---

Abstract

Bicycling is an alternative of urban transport mode, which is significantly influenced by land use. This paper makes an effort to quantify the magnitude and direction of the impact. We first develop a theoretical framework to establish links between land use and bicycle usage. Then, trip data is crawled from Mobike, one of the largest newly emerging, free-floating bike sharing operators in Shenzhen (China), for a total of more than 7.8 million records over 191 consecutive days. And bicycling frequency, travel duration, and riding distance are obtained to be proxies of bicycle usage. Land-use characteristics regarding bicycling are comprehensively indicated by a set of standardized variables including three dimensions, land-use type, land-use mix, land-use connections, and 12 concrete indices. Panel spatial model is applied to quantify the associations at the district level with socioeconomics controlled. Results show that the percentage of green land has a remarkable impact on bicycle usage outcomes and land-use mix is positively associated with bicycling frequency. Density of intersections contributes to longer trip duration. Bicycle lane is a positive facilitator on workdays, while the number of stations is positively related to bicycle usage, especially frequency and distance. These findings provide insight into land use-transport interaction and could be of value to policymakers, planers and practitioners for transport planning while incorporating bicycling-friendly principles.

---

References

Buck, D., & Buehler, R. (2012). Bike lanes and other determinants of capital bikeshare trips. Paper presented at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2012, Washington, DC.

Castillo-Manzano, J. I., López-Valpuesta, L., & Sánchez-Braza, A. (2016). Going a long way? On your bike! Comparing the distances for which public bicycle sharing system and private bicycles are used. Applied Geography, 71, 95–105.

Cervero, R. (1996). Mixed land-uses and commuting: Evidence from the American Housing Survey. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 30(5), 361–377.

Cervero, R. (2003). Road expansion, urban growth, and induced travel: A path analysis. Journal of the American Planning Association, 69(2), 145–163.

Cervero, R., & Kockelman, K. (1997). Travel demand and the 3Ds: Density, diversity, and design. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 2(3), 199–219.

Chahal, M., Harit, S., Mishra, K. K., Sangaiah, A. K., & Zheng, Z. (2017). A Survey on software-defined networking in vehicular ad hoc networks: Challenges, applications and use cases. Sustainable Cities and Society, 35(Supplement C), 830–840.

Chill.n, P., Molina-Garc.a, J., Castillo, I., & Queralt, A. (2016). What distance do university students walk and bike daily to class in Spain. Journal of Transport & Health, 3(3), 315–320.

Christian, H. E., Bull, F. C., Middleton, N. J., Knuiman, M. W., Divitini, M. L., Hooper, P., & Giles- Corti, B. (2011). How important is the land-use mix measure in understanding walking behavior? Results from the RESIDE study. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 8(1), 55.

DeMaio, P. (2009). Bike-sharing: History, impacts, models of provision, and future. Journal of Public Transportation, 12(4), 3.

Duncan, M. J., Winkler, E., Sugiyama, T., Cerin, E., duToit, L., Leslie, E., & Owen, N. (2010). Relationships of land-use mix with walking for transport: Do land uses and geographical scale matter? Journal of Urban Health, 87(5), 782–795. doi.10.1007/s11524-010-9488-7

Durstine, J. L., Gordon, B., Wang, Z., & Luo, X. (2013). Chronic disease and the link to physical activity. Journal of Sport and Health Science, 2(1), 3–11.

El-Assi, W., Mahmoud, M. S., & Habib, K. N. (2017). Effects of built environment and weather on bike sharing demand: A station level analysis of commercial bike sharing in Toronto. Transportation, 44(3), 589–613.

Eriksson, M., Udd.n, J., Hemmingsson, E., & Agewall, S. (2010). Impact of physical activity and body composition on heart function and morphology in middle-aged, abdominally obese women. Clinical Physiology & Functional Imaging, 30(5), 354–359.

Ewing, R., Cervero, R.(2012). Travel and the built environment: A synthesis. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1780, 87–114.

Faghih-Imani, A., & Eluru, N. (2016). Incorporating the impact of spatio-temporal interactions on bicycle sharing system demand: A case study of New York CitiBike system. Journal of Transport Geography, 54, 218–227.

Faghih-Imani, A., Eluru, N., El-Geneidy, A. M., Rabbat, M., & Haq, U. (2014). How land use and urban form impact bicycle flows: Evidence from the bicycle-sharing system (BIXI) in Montreal. Journal of Transport Geography, 41, 306–314.

Faghih-Imani, A., Hampshire, R., Marla, L., & Eluru, N. (2017). An empirical analysis of bike sharing usage and rebalancing: Evidence from Barcelona and Seville. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 97, 177–191.

Frank, L. D., Sallis, J. F., Conway, T. L., Chapman, J. E., Saelens, B. E., & Bachman, W. (2006). Many pathways from land use to health: Associations between neighborhood walkability and active transportation, body mass index, and air quality. Journal of the American Planning Association, 72(1), 75–87.

Frank, L. D., Schmid, T. L., Sallis, J. F., Chapman, J., & Saelens, B. E. (2005). Linking objectively measured physical activity with objectively measured urban form: Findings from SMARTRAQ. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 28(2, Supplement 2), 117–125.

Fraser, S. D., & Lock, K. (2011). Cycling for transport and public health: A systematic review of the effect of the environment on cycling. European Journal of Public Health, 21(6), 738–743.

Fuller, D., & Winters, M. (2017). Income inequalities in Bike Score and bicycling to work in Canada. Journal of Transport & Health, 7(Part B), 264–268.

Gebhart, K., & Noland, R. B. (2014). The impact of weather conditions on bikeshare trips in Washington, DC. Transportation, 41(6), 1205–1225.

Giles-Corti, B., Timperio, A., Bull, F., & Pikora, T. (2005). Understanding physical activity environmental correlates: Increased specificity for ecological models. Exercise & Sport Sciences Reviews, 33(4), 175–181.

Gris., E., & El-Geneidy, A. (2018). If we build it, who will benefit? A multi-criteria approach for the prioritization of new bicycle lanes in Quebec City, Canada. Journal of Transport and Land Use, 11(1). 217–235.

Handy, S., Cao, X., & Mokhtarian, P. (2005). Correlation or causality between the built environment and travel behavior? Evidence from Northern California. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 10(6), 427–444.

Heesch, K. C., Giles-Corti, B., & Turrell, G. (2015). Cycling for transport and recreation: Associations with the socio-economic, natural and built environment. Health & Place, 36(Supplement C), 152–161.

Heinen, E., Van Wee, B., & Maat, K. (2010). Commuting by bicycle: An overview of the literature. Transport Reviews, 30(1), 59–96.

Holz-Rau, C., & Scheiner, J. (2019). Land-use and transport planning–A field of complex cause-impact relationships. Thoughts on transport growth, greenhouse gas emissions and the built environment. Transport Policy, 74, 127–137.

Karki, T. K. , & Tao, L. (2016). How accessible and convenient are the public bicycle sharing programs in China? Experiences from Suzhou City. Habitat International, 53, 188–194.

Kaspi, M., Raviv, T., & Tzur, M. (2016). Detection of unusable bicycles in bike-sharing systems. Omega, 65, 10–1.

Koglin, T., & Rye, T. (2014). The marginalization of bicycling in modernist urban transport planning. Journal of Transport & Health, 1(4), 214–222.

Kou, Z., Wang, X., Chiu, S. F. A., & Cai, H. (2020). Quantifying greenhouse gas emissions reduction from bike share systems: A model considering real-world trips and transportation mode choice patterns. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 153, 104534.

Krykewycz, G. R., Puchalsky, C. M., Rocks, J., Bonnette, B., & Jaskiewicz, F. (2010). Defining a primary market and estimating demand for major bicycle-sharing program in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Transportation Research Record, 2143(1), 117–124.

Kutela, B., & Kidando, E. (2017). Toward a better understanding of Effectiveness of bike-share programs: Exploring factors affecting bikes idle duration. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS), 29(1), 33–46

Kutela, B., & Teng, H. (2019). The influence of campus characteristics, temporal factors, and weather events on campuses-related daily bike-share trips. Journal of Transport Geography, 78, 160–169.

LeSage, J. P. (2008). An introduction to spatial econometrics. Revue d'économie Industrielle, (3), 19–44.

Ma, L., & Dill, J. (2015). Associations between the objective and perceived built environment and bicycling for transportation. Journal of Transport & Health, 2(2), 248–255.

Marshall, W., & Garrick, N. (2010). Effect of street network design on walking and biking. Transportation Research Record, 2198(1), 103–115.

Mateobabiano, I., Bean, R., Corcoran, J., & Pojani, D. (2016). How does our natural and built environment affect the use of bicycle sharing. Transportation Research Part A-Policy and Practice, 295–307.

Meng, M., Koh, P., Wong, Y., & Zhong, Y. (2014). Influences of urban characteristics on cycling: Experiences of four cities. Sustainable Cities and Society, 13, 78–88.

Midgley, P. (2011). Bicycle-sharing schemes: Enhancing sustainable mobility in urban areas. Background paper No. 8. New York: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Mooney, S. J., Hosford, K., Howe, B., Yan, A., Winters, M., Bassok, A., & Hirsch, J. A. (2019). Freedom from the station: Spatial equity in access to dockless bike share. Journal of Transport Geography, 74, 91–96.

Nair, R., Miller-Hooks, E., Hampshire, R. C., & Bušić, A. (2013). Large-scale vehicle sharing systems: Analysis of V.lib'. International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 7(1), 85–106.

Nigro, A., Bertolini, L., & Moccia, F. D. (2019). Land use and public transport integration in small cities and towns: Assessment methodology and application. Journal of Transport Geography, 74, 110–124.

O’Brien, O., Cheshire, J., & Batty, M. (2014). Mining bicycle sharing data for generating insights into sustainable transport systems. Journal of Transport Geography, 34, 262–273.

Rixey, R. (2013). Station-level forecasting of bikesharing ridership: Station network effects in three US systems. Transportation Research Record, 2387, 46–55.

Rudloff, C., & Lackner, B. (2014). Modeling demand for bikesharing systems: Neighboring stations as source for demand and reason for structural breaks. Transportation Research Record, 2430(1), 1–11.

Saelens, B. E., Sallis, J. F., & Frank, L. D. (2003). Environmental correlates of walking and cycling: Findings from the transportation, urban design, and planning literatures. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 25(2), 80–91.

Shaheen, S. A., Cohen, A. P., & Martin, E. W. (2013). Public bikesharing in North America: Early operator understanding and emerging trends. Transportation Research Record, 2387(1), 83–92.

Shaheen, S. A., Guzman, S., & Zhang, H. (2010). Bikesharing in Europe, the Americas, and Asia: Past, present, and future. Transportation Research Record, 2143(1), 159–167.

Shen, Y., Zhang, X., & Zhao, J. (2018). Understanding the usage of dockless bike sharing in Singapore. International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 12(9),686–700.

Shenzhen Statistical Yearbook, China Statistic Press, Beijing (2018).

Shi, J. G., Si, H., Wu, G., Su, Y., & Lan, J. (2018). Critical factors to achieve dockless bike-sharing sustainability in China: A stakeholder-oriented network perspective. Sustainability, 10(6), 2090.

Sisson, S., M., Lee, S. K., Burns, E., & Tudor-Locke, C. (2006). Suitability of commuting by bicycle to Arizona elementary schools. American Journal of Health Promotion, 20(3), 210–221.

Southworth, M. (2005). Designing the walkable city. Journal of Urban Planning and Development, 131(4), 246–257.

Su, S., Xiao, R., Xu, X., Zhang, Z., Mi, X., & Wu, J. (2013). Multi-scale spatial determinants of dissolved oxygen and nutrients in Qiantang River, China. Regional Environmental Change, 13(1), 77–89.

Su, S., Zhang, Q., Pi, J., Wan, C., & Weng, M. (2016). Public health in linkage to land use: Theoretical framework, empirical evidence, and critical implications for reconnecting health promotion to land-use policy. Land Use Policy, 57(Supplement C), 605–618.

Sugiyama, T., Leslie, E., Giles-Corti, B., & Owen, N. (2009). Physical activity for recreation or exercise on neighborhood streets: Associations with perceived environmental attributes. Health & Place, 15(4), 1058–1063.

Sun, G., & Zacharias, J. (2017). Can bicycle relieve overcrowded metro? Managing short-distance travel in Beijing. Sustainable Cities and Society, 35, 323–330.

Tan, S., Zhao, Y., & Huang, W. (2019). Neighborhood social disadvantage and bicycling behavior: A big data-spatial approach based on social indicators. Social Indicators Research, 145(3), 985–999.

Titze, S., Stronegger, W. J., Janschitz, S., & Oja, P. (2007). Environmental, social, and personal correlates of cycling for transportation in a student population. Journal of Physical Activity & Health, 4(1), 66–79.

Titze, S., Stronegger, W. J., Janschitz, S., & Oja, P. (2008). Association of built-environment, social-environment and personal factors with bicycling as a mode of transportation among Austrian city dwellers. Preventive Medicine, 47(3), 252–259.

Wang, D., Chai, Y., & Li, F. (2011). Built environment diversities and activity–travel behaviour variations in Beijing, China. Journal of Transport Geography, 19(6), 1173–1186.

Wang, K., & Akar, G. (2019). Gender gap generators for bike share ridership: Evidence from Citi Bike system in New York City. Journal of Transport Geography, 76, 1–9.

Wang, M., & Zhou, X. (2017). Bike-sharing systems and congestion: Evidence from US cities. Journal of Transport Geography, 65, 147–154.

Wang, X., Lindsey, G., Schoner, J. E., & Harrison, A. (2016). Modeling bike share station activity: Effects of nearby businesses and jobs on trips to and from stations. Journal of Urban Planning and Development, 142(1), 04015001.

Wendel-Vos, G., Schuit, A. J., De Niet, R., Boshuizen, H. C., Saris, W., & Kromhout, D. (2004). Factors of the physical environment associated with walking and bicycling. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 36(4), 725–730.

Winters, M., Brauer, M., Setton, E. M., & Teschke, K. (2010). Built environment influences on healthy transportation choices: Bicycling versus driving. Journal of Urban Health, 87(6), 969–993.

Winters, M., Davidson, G., Kao, D., & Teschke, K. (2011). Motivators and deterrents of bicycling: Comparing influences on decisions to ride. Transportation, 38(1), 153–168.

Yang, M., & Zacharias, J. (2016). Potential for revival of the bicycle in Beijing. International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 10(6), 517–527.

You, H. (2016). Characterizing the inequalities in urban public green space provision in Shenzhen, China. Habitat International, 56, 176–180.

Zacharias, J. (2005). Non-motorized transportation in four Shanghai districts. International Planning Studies, 10(3-4), 323–340.

Zhao, P. (2014). The impact of the built environment on bicycle commuting: Evidence from Beijing. Urban Studies, 51(5), 1019–1037.

Zhao, P., & Li, S. (2017). Bicycle-metro integration in a growing city: The determinants of cycling as a transfer mode in metro station areas in Beijing. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 99 (Supplement C), 46–60.

Zhang, H. (2010). Bike sharing in Europe, the Americas, and Asia: Past, present, and future. Transportation Research Record, 2143, 159–167.

Zhang, L., Zhang, J., Duan, Z. Y., & Bryde, D. (2015). Sustainable bike-sharing systems: Characteristics and commonalities across cases in urban China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 97, 124–133.