Co-producing an urban mobility service? The role of actors, policies, and technology in the boom and bust of dockless bike-sharing programmes.

This paper examines the role of actors, policies and technology in the evolution of a basic urban transport service by investigating a complex range of factors shaping the inception and adaptation of the bike-sharing programme. Media data were analysed in relation to two major programmes, supplemented by further investigation into the broader discourse of the programmes. The findings reveal that an array of actors in the categories of government, citizen, business maker and investor, together with evolving policies and technology, collectively determine the sustainability of the programme. The operator-investor centred unorthodox co-production and delivery of dockless bike-sharing provides an alternative model to urban basic service provision which is currently dominated by the centralised and government-citizen centred co-production models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]