Dockless bike use as a last-mile solution: Evidence from Reno and Sparks, Nevada

Dockless bike-sharing schemes have become more prevalent in cities around the world. While interest grows in studying their usage in larger cities with well-established transit systems, their role in expanding mid-sized cities that are more automobile-dependent remains understudied. This paper evaluates how dockless bike-sharing can provide a last-mile solution by connecting existing bus stops with destinations through an analysis of data collected from 111,155 unique trips over a five-month trial period of a dockless bike sharing scheme in Reno-Sparks, Nevada, USA in the summer of 2018. We classify trips by frequency of use and adjacency to bus stops into four categories and apply multivariate models to determine the link between trip occurrence and the immediate environment. Results indicate that repeat users’ trips that begin or end near the same bus stop are more strongly linked with proximity to bicycle lanes, but tend to be farther from parks and casino resorts. Repeat users typically start trips in denser areas of the city with higher shares of renter-occupied units and higher shares of households without a vehicle, and ended them in less dense areas with higher percentages of white, non-Hispanic residents compared to one-time users. We find differences in association of travel with food service, education, health services, and casino resorts. This suggests that some benefits may be realized by deploying bike sharing in mid-sized cities, but must be weighed against findings that show repeat usage in areas that align with common early transportation technology and service adopter profiles.