Scholars Award: US Public-Private Partnerships in Bicycle Sharing Systems

该奖项支持实证研究，以检查自行车共享的规划（即，自行车共享）系统在美国，重点是费城（PA），奥斯汀（TX）和奥克兰（CA）。自行车共享系统通常是市政当局和供应商公司之间的合作伙伴关系，其中自动对接站网络可供公众订阅。它们是美国发展最快的交通技术之一，目前有200多个系统正在运行或计划中，并且作为可持续城市发展战略的一部分，它们已经变得非常受欢迎。然而，他们的用户是不成比例的白色和富裕，即使在不同的城市。该项目的目标是通过分析自行车共享系统的社会空间塑造的行为者网络来解释这些差异;该网络包括承包公司，规划师，城市官员和顾问。该项目的成果将对城市规划、公共管理和交通工程具有重大的政策意义。研究成果包括在学术和专业会议上并向广大公众介绍研究结果，在主要的同行评审期刊上发表研究结果和一本专着，针对从业人员的新闻文章和研究简报，培训研究生助理，研究结果和收集到的数据对关注可持续流动性和包容性交通政策的组织的贡献。研究项目发现，公私伙伴关系的要求将空间不平等嵌入到自行车共享系统的社会技术组织中，从而限制了其作为城市环境治理更普遍要素的能力。虽然许多对快速增长的城市共享交通系统的研究都集中在其技术新奇上，但这项研究突出了通过此类系统发挥作用的社会和政治力量，其广泛影响超出了自行车共享。本研究透过访谈、实地观察、地理资讯系统分析及档案研究，达到三个主要目的。它将评估现有的社会，经济和空间因素的数据如何塑造自行车共享系统设计的技术过程，特别是站点位置。它还将调查政府和自行车共享提供商之间的伙伴关系在这一塑造过程中的作用，以及其对适应公平问题的能力的影响。此外，它还将研究系统边缘站点的规划，使用和评估，以及其他参与者，包括居民，企业，机构和社区组织对这些站点的反应。

This award supports empirical research to examine the planning of bikeshare (i.e., bicycle-sharing) systems in the United States, focusing on Philadelphia (PA), Austin (TX), and Oakland (CA). Bikeshare systems are typically partnerships between municipalities and provider firms in which a network of automatic docking stations is available to the public on a subscription basis. They are one of the fastest-growing transportation technologies in America, with currently over 200 systems in operation or planned, and they have become enormously popular as part of a sustainable urban development strategy. However, their users are disproportionately white and affluent, even in diverse cities. The goal of this project is to explain these disparities through an analysis of the socio-spatial shaping of bikeshare systems by a network of actors; the network includes contracting firms, planners, city officials, and consultants. The results of this project will have substantial policy relevance for urban planning, public administration, and transportation engineering. Research products include the presentation of findings at academic and professional conferences and to the public at large, publication of findings in key peer-reviewed journals and a monograph, journalistic articles and research briefs aimed at practitioners, the training of a graduate research assistant, and contributions of findings and collected data to organizations focused on sustainable mobility and inclusive transportation policy.The main hypothesis of this research project is that the requirements of public-private partnerships embed spatial inequalities into the sociotechnical organization of bikeshare systems thereby limiting their capacity to act as a more generalized element of urban environmental governance. While many studies of the fast-growing sector of urban shared mobility systems focus on their technological novelty, this research foregrounds the social and political forces that work through such systems, with broad implications beyond bikeshare. Through interviews, site observation, GIS analysis, and archival research, the study pursues three main objectives. It will assess how data about existing social, economic, and spatial factors shape the technical process of bikeshare system design, particularly station location. It will also investigate the role of partnerships between governments and bikeshare providers in this shaping process, and its effect on the capacity to accommodate equity concerns. In addition, it will examine the planning, use, and evaluation of stations at the system edge, and the responses of other actors, including residents, businesses, institutions, and community organizations, to these stations.