| As problems on society, environment, resource and energy have been occurred along with the global urbanization and motorization, bicycle, which is an environmental-friendly transit mode that faster than walk and more flexible than public transit, are receiving more are and more attention from the world. Bikesharing is an innovation from the traditional bicycle system, and have spread quickly worldwide since 2007. Hangzhou Public Bicycle System, which was launched in May 2008, has become the world's largest bikesharing system now, and has induced Chinese cities built 18 formal bikesharing systems at present. But so far, researches on bikesharing are still very scarce, and the existing limited studies are mostly initial introduction of this concept. The same situation also happens on the field of bicycle transport study in China, systematic studies of bikesharing in China has not carried out yet.Therefore, based on the review of bikesharing development in the world and the evolution of bicycle transport in China, combined with the use of innovation diffusion and adoption theory, government intervention theory, and travel behavior theory and methods, this paper started a research to study consumer's adoption behavior of bikesharing in Hangzhou. The aim of this paper is to clarify the main impact factors of consumers'adoption decision-making process, the impact of government intervention, and consumers' behavior changes after they adopted bikesharing, so that some useful experience can be provided for the bikesharing development in China in the future. Expert interview, on-street intercept survey, and field survey are the main methods that used for this study. This dissertation is divided into four parts. The first part includes the first two chapters, namely the overview and literature review; the second part includes chapter three and chapter four, which gave a review of bikesharing in the world and bicycle transport in China; the third part includes chapter six to chapter nine, which is the empirical research of the paper; the fourth part includes chapter ten and chapter eleven, which is the conclusion of the paper.On the basis of previous studies, this paper has seven main findings listed as following:(1) Bikesharing in the world is exploring or exhibiting the potential for continuous improvements to the fourth-generation (Demand-Responsive, Multi-Modal Systems). At present, there are approximately 141 bikesharing programs operating in an estimated 170 cities in 35 countries around five Continents (i.e., Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Oceania), with a total of 237,971 shared bicycles.(2) The target population of Hangzhou Public Bicycle System is likely to be characterized as:less than 45 years old, are staffs of companies, come from middle-income families (40,000-100,000 Yuan RMB), have a steady job (works five days a week), almost married (average commuting people in a family is 1.68). Age, occupation, household income, household commuting numbers, average commute day per week, bike rent experience and bike stolen experience are some of the factors that have significant impacts on consumers'adoption decision, and on the contrary, the impact of gender, education level, bicycles and electric bike ownership is not obvious.(3) Almost free of use, is the biggest impetus for bikesharing adoption in Hangzhou. No stations near house/work place, can't get parking spaces when needed, apply a bikesharing card is a hassle, are the main reason preventing consumers from adopting bikesharing. Hard to rent/return a bike during peak hours, bikes are not maintained well, hard to keep revenue and expenditure balance, and business hour is insufficient for consumers'demand, are the main problems of Hangzhou Public Bicycle System. Build large service center, set up "suspected failure-vehicle identification and major repair" maintenance system, explore more business models, and use a 24/7 fully automated operation system, would be the likely approaches to resolve the above problems.(4) Government intervention has significant impacts on consumers'adoption decision. The biggest impact is the price effects, followed by reputation effects (confidence of the system's longevity), and expected impact (scale and quality of the system, etc.). The main measures of government intervention for Hangzhou Public Bicycle System are:make special transport planning for the system, provide land for stations, provide government subsidies and government loans, and provide some policy support (such as allowing sell advertisings on bikes and stations, etc.). In this paper, hypothesis 1 can be fully accepted, and hypothesis 2 can be only partially accepted.(5) Hangzhou Public Bicycle System has changed consumers'travel behavior significantly, that is:bikesharing has become daily commute tool for nearly 1/3 of all the users, and is shifting people towards bicycle use. The main purpose of bikesharing use is commuting, bikesharing are mainly drawing users from bus transit, walking, private bicycle, but also reduced the use of private cars, taxis and other motor vehicles. Moreover, bikesharing in Hangzhou also reduced greenhouse gas emissions significantly.(6) China has become the world's fastest growing market for bikesharing activity today.18 cities in mainland China have launched their formal bikesharing programs since 2005, and there are a total of 131,700 bicycles located in 4.575 stations at present. Operating model for bikesharing in China are different from each other, and can be characterized to four modes, they are:Beijing mode (self-financing enterprises provide service), Hangzhou mode (government-led, public transport operators provide service), Wuhan mode (enterprises-led, government support) and the Shanghai mode (enterprises provide service, and government purchases it for the city).(7) Existing experience of China's bikesharing systems can give some inspirations to its future development as following:land provision for stations is critical to system expansion; program financial sustainability is challenging but evolving; integration with public transport is the main trend for bikesharing development in the future; prevent bicycle theft and vandalism is the request of long-term operation; free use for an initial period, followed by incremental pricing could be the most effective pricing system; hard to rent/return a bike during peak hours, bikes are not maintained well, hard to keep revenue and expenditure balance, and business hour is insufficient for consumers'demand, are likely to be main problems for all the bikesharing systems in China.
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