Bikes pay off on short-distance trips. Image source: Shutterstock (#566073991)
Researchers from the University of Toronto and University of Central Florida have used Citi Bike trip data to show that for many taxi trips taken, bike sharing would have saved time and money. A big share of taxi and bike-share trips cover comparable distances already, but the study published in Transportation Research shows that 55 percent of taxi rides did not even reach two miles.
Particularly at rush hour, bike share can either compete with or beat taxi speeds. Taxis hailed within range of a Citi Bike station were only slightly faster on average, but when travel distances become shorter or traffic denser, bikes prevailed.
This might be reason enough for bike sharing services such as Citi Bike to test rush-hour pricing incentives or bike-trip planning tools integrated into the stations.
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