1. Does bike-sharing reduce traffic congestion? Evidence from three mega-cities in China.
- Author
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Xu X and Zuo W
- Subjects
- China epidemiology, Humans, Transportation, Automobile Driving, Accidents, Traffic prevention & control, Beijing, Bicycling, Cities
- Abstract
This study employs a regression discontinuity design to systematically examine the governance effect of bike-sharing on urban traffic congestion, utilizing city-level data from Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuhan in China between 2016 and 2018. We discover that the introduction of bike-sharing services significantly mitigates traffic congestion in the short term. Our heterogeneity analysis reveals that the initial deployment of shared bicycles primarily alleviates urban congestion, while additional deployments have a limited impact. Further, mechanism test analysis demonstrates that bike-sharing leads to increased metro ridership in these cities, effectively explaining the reduction in road congestion. This study underscores the pivotal role of bike-sharing services in easing urban traffic congestion and provides vital policy insights for enhancing traffic management strategies in Chinese cities., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Xu, Zuo. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
- Published
- 2024
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