5 ms·

Forecasting Bike Sharing Demand

42 points by efavdb 12y ago

tunnuz 12y ago
Interesting post, and it's very nice that the author decided to share all the scripts. Forecasting the demand is the first fundamental step to actually optimize the rebalancing operations that usually happen overnight. There is a lot of academic and applied research in this field. Prof. David Shmoys (Cornell University) is working on optimising the rebalancing operations of the of CitiBike NYC (press article http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/01/cornell-research-steers-nyc-bikes-needy-stations http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/01/cornell-research...), Prof. Günther Raidl has been doing the same for a while for the CityBike Vienna (Austria) network (http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/08/balancing-bike-share-stations-has-become-a-serious-scientific-endeavor/379188 http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/08/balancing-bike-share-...), and three researchers from Udine (Italy), and Vienna (Austria), including myself, have been working on the same problem on similar data sets (summary paper http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10601-015-9182-1 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10601-015-9182-1, or preprint http://www.tunnuz.net/documents/digaspero_rendl_urli_constraints2014.pdf http://www.tunnuz.net/documents/digaspero_rendl_urli_constra...).
- efavdb 12y ago
  I am glad you enjoyed the post. I have only recently started working with the bike data sets and it has been interesting. I will take a look at those articles. Thanks!
  - tunnuz 12y ago
    Also, you might want to look at the keyword "computational sustainability", which is where stuff like this gets usually published in academia.
alwaysdoit 12y ago
Maybe we just need self-riding bikes to solve these demand balancing issues.
- efavdb 12y ago
  That would be nice, or maybe there could be incentives for people to move the bikes. Seeing bikes ride themselves would look great though.
  - swimfar 12y ago
    In some cities they reward you for returning bikes to certain locations that have a borrow/return ratio imbalance. For example, they will add bonus minutes to your card so if you go over the standard single-trip time period (e.g. 30 minutes) you can use the extra minutes to avoid getting an extra charge.
    - bennettfeely 12y ago
      Pittsburgh will be getting it's first bike sharing program this May, with 50 stations and I believe about 500 bikes. If you've ever been to Pittsburgh you will immediately notice how hilly the city is in downtown and in neighboring Oakland. I look forward to the bike sharing program but I don't believe people will be very willing to bike uphill a significant distance without some reward like you are suggesting.
      - tunnuz 12y ago
        That is one of the main reasons why rebalancing is needed (people being lazy).
  - paddy_m 12y ago
    They should offer a cash reward that is less than their internal cost for a rebalancing operation. They should also implement congestion pricing. In Manhattan, I would love to be able to ride a citibike crosstown in mid town. Both stations are full in the middle of the day. If I take a bike out of the dock on the east side, I should get a credit, and I should pay money when I dock it at a busy station on the west side. It would be a wash for me, or I might pay a little. The upside is, those trips should be very easy for citibike to fullfill, it's not like riding out from an empty bike area to a crowded area.

42 points by efavdb 12y ago

Interesting post, and it's very nice that the author decided to share all the scripts. Forecasting the demand is the first fundamental step to actually optimize the rebalancing operations that usually happen overnight. There is a lot of academic and applied research in this field. Prof. David Shmoys (Cornell University) is working on optimising the rebalancing operations of the of CitiBike NYC (press article http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/01/cornell-research-steers-nyc-bikes-needy-stations http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/01/cornell-research...), Prof. Günther Raidl has been doing the same for a while for the CityBike Vienna (Austria) network (http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/08/balancing-bike-share-stations-has-become-a-serious-scientific-endeavor/379188 http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/08/balancing-bike-share-...), and three researchers from Udine (Italy), and Vienna (Austria), including myself, have been working on the same problem on similar data sets (summary paper http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10601-015-9182-1 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10601-015-9182-1, or preprint http://www.tunnuz.net/documents/digaspero_rendl_urli_constraints2014.pdf http://www.tunnuz.net/documents/digaspero_rendl_urli_constra...).

efavdb 12y ago
I am glad you enjoyed the post. I have only recently started working with the bike data sets and it has been interesting. I will take a look at those articles. Thanks!
- tunnuz 12y ago
  Also, you might want to look at the keyword "computational sustainability", which is where stuff like this gets usually published in academia.

alwaysdoit 12y ago

Maybe we just need self-riding bikes to solve these demand balancing issues.

efavdb 12y ago
That would be nice, or maybe there could be incentives for people to move the bikes. Seeing bikes ride themselves would look great though.
- swimfar 12y ago
  In some cities they reward you for returning bikes to certain locations that have a borrow/return ratio imbalance. For example, they will add bonus minutes to your card so if you go over the standard single-trip time period (e.g. 30 minutes) you can use the extra minutes to avoid getting an extra charge.
  - bennettfeely 12y ago
    Pittsburgh will be getting it's first bike sharing program this May, with 50 stations and I believe about 500 bikes. If you've ever been to Pittsburgh you will immediately notice how hilly the city is in downtown and in neighboring Oakland. I look forward to the bike sharing program but I don't believe people will be very willing to bike uphill a significant distance without some reward like you are suggesting.
    - tunnuz 12y ago
      That is one of the main reasons why rebalancing is needed (people being lazy).
- paddy_m 12y ago
  They should offer a cash reward that is less than their internal cost for a rebalancing operation. They should also implement congestion pricing. In Manhattan, I would love to be able to ride a citibike crosstown in mid town. Both stations are full in the middle of the day. If I take a bike out of the dock on the east side, I should get a credit, and I should pay money when I dock it at a busy station on the west side. It would be a wash for me, or I might pay a little. The upside is, those trips should be very easy for citibike to fullfill, it's not like riding out from an empty bike area to a crowded area.