Towards Bike Share Equity: Strategic Planning of Bike Share Networks to Improve Access to Jobs, Healthcare, and Grocery Stores

PI:  Corey Harper

Co-PI(s): Peter Zhang

University:  Carnegie Mellon University

Industry Partner:  POGOH

Poor accessibility to essential destinations (i.e., jobs, grocery stores, and healthcare) has been a pain point for many cities. Bike share could help to increase access to essential destinations, however there exist gaps in coverage and limited tools are available to help providers understand the effects of expansion decisions on access to essential destinations. The goals of this proposal are to: 1) produce an accessibility metric, to quantify how accessible essential destinations are by walk, transit, and bike share, 2) integrate this accessibility index and other planning metrics into an optimization tool to find optimal locations for bike expansion, and 3) conduct a proof-of-concept analysis and develop preliminary results. This model will be developed in collaboration with POGOH to assist them in making more intelligent infrastructure investment decisions, which will lead to improved economic viability by expanding access to new customers in Pittsburgh, PA.