Journal of Transport and Land Use

On the path to develop a micromobility journey planner for Madrid: A tool to estimate, visualize, and analyze cycling and other shared mobility services’ flow

Daniela Arias Molinares

tGIS Research Group, Department of Geography, Complutense University Madrid

Rubén Talavera-García

tGIS Research Group, Department of Geography, Complutense University Madrid

Gustavo Romanillos-Arroyo

tGIS Research Group, Department of Geography, Complutense University Madrid

Juan Carlos García-Palomares

tGIS Research Group, Department of Geography, Complutense University Madrid

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.2024.2451

Keywords: route map, journey planner, bike, moped, scooter, micromobility

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Abstract

Journey planners could be one of the most relevant aspects to consider when choosing and deciding our daily trips. However, many of these trip apps still do not consider the new forms of mobility that are emerging in cities, also known as micromobility services (shared bikes, mopeds and scooters). In this study, we pursue two main objectives. On one hand, we create a journey planner for micromobility in Madrid. On the other hand, we use the journey planner to estimate and analyze micromobility flow considering the origin and destination points of trips registered in 2019 from the three different shared modes. Our results involve a series of maps that illustrate how micromobility flow is distributed in the city and the different dynamics considering two scenarios (weekdays and weekends). The journey planner helps to visualize those streets where micromobility flow concentrates, making micromobility users more visible and thus promoting that their paths become safer, attracting new users to start using micromobility (positive loop). Also, the maps could help policy planners to allocate new infrastructure in the city where it is needed most.

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