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Bike-sharing systems have become an indispensable transportation mode due to the environmental friendliness and shareability in the sustainable cities development process. However, the asymmetry of people's travel patterns during the morning and evening rush hours has contributed to the imbalance in bike inventory. Consequently, station rentals and returns require redistribution to address the rebalancing of bikes. In this paper, a user-based repositioning method through a bi-level programming model is proposed. With the objective of minimizing the repositioning workload, the upper-level model yields redistribution proportions that enable the balance between rentals and returns at the station. In addition, aiming at maximum user profit, the lower-level model calculates a redistribution matrix between station pairs and provides recommended stations for users. Finally, three levels of evaluation indicators for the bike-sharing system, operators, and users are presented. The results indicate that the proposed user-based repositioning is remarkably effective in improving the bike inventory balance and the station's turnover rate. This study provides a novel idea for the bike-sharing repositioning problem and contributes to the improvement of urban transportation. • A user-based repositioning method using a bi-level programming model is proposed. • The proposed method is evaluated in terms of users, operator and bike-sharing system. • The effectiveness of the model is validated in the Philadelphia bike-sharing system. • The suggested polices could accommodate both repositioning costs and efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]