Preliminary Results of a Spatial Analysis of Dublin City’s Bike Rental Scheme

Abstract

We present some initial observations on the usage and flow patterns of the DublinBikes (DB) bicycle rental scheme across Dublin city. In September 2009 Dublin City in conjunction with outdoor advertising company JC Decaux made 450 bicycles publicly available from 40 locations around the city in a scheme called DublinBikes (DB). Cycling, as a commuting mode forms an important part of the Irish Government's Transport policy for Ireland up to 2020 stating that "a culture of cycling will be developed by 2020 to envisage around 160,000 people cycling for their daily commute, up from 35,000 in 2006"(DOT, 2009). We follow Froehlich et al (2008) who find usage patterns from these bike rental schemes can "infer cultural and geographical aspects of the city and predict future bike station usage behaviour" when combined with geographical information and local knowledge. Data captured on DB and presented in this paper covers the period of September 20th 2009 to February 15th 2010 inclusive