Study On The Alleviating Effect Of Shared Mobility On Urban Traffic Congestion

With urbanization and the continuous development of the motor vehicle industry,major cities in our country and even in the whole world are facing severe traffic congestion problems.As literature in the traffic congestion management and the traffic demand management fields pointed out,the key to solving traffic congestion problems is to reduce the number of motorized trips in the city,promote the development of green non-motorized trips,and to increase the frequency of public transportation trips,thereby reducing the weekday congestions and serious congestion in rush hours.In recent years,with the rapid development of mobile Internet technology and the mature application of Internet of Things technology,the sharing economy,a new and efficient economic form,has been well developed in all areas of people's lives,especially in the field of shared mobility.The widespread mobility sharing services provide us with new types of efficient travel means: bikesharing and ride-sharing services.Now that the introduction and development of shared mobility have significant growth and impact the city,how is it affecting the traffic congestion issue? Can the development of shared mobility solve the three core problems of traffic congestion: promote non-motorized travel,reduce motorized travel,and increase the use of public transportation systems? At the same time,can it ease the severe congestion problems in the city during working days and in the rush hours? The fastest-growing and largest shared mobility market is here in China.Based on the vigorous development of shared mobility in China and the relative lack of theoretical research status,this dissertation utilizes the high-precision observational shared mobility order data combined with urban traffic congestion management theory,traffic demand management theory,public transportation demand theory,and geographical data visualization technology,POI data processing and analysis,spatial data mining,image recognition,causal analysis based on econometric models,and other theoretical and technical methods,to supplement the future shared mobility operations and also the traffic congestion management in the long run.This dissertation aims to provide future cities with constructive suggestions and viable solutions when constructing future smart city mobility systems.First,this dissertation studies and quantifies the facilitation of shared mobility on non-motor vehicle travels and the substitution effects of shared mobility on motor vehicle travels.It finds that the introduction and promotion of bike-sharing services significantly reduced the demand for motor vehicle travel in various functional areas within the city,especially for short-distance travels.When citizens faced with new travel mode options offered by bike-sharing bikes,they became willing to use bicycles instead of motor vehicles under certain circumstances.In the meanwhile,motor vehicles were left for travelers who needed them more,such as long-distance commuters.After the introduction of bike-sharing,a significant proportion of shortdistance travelers turned to bicycling,and long-distance motor vehicle travelers therefore enjoyed better mobility experiences with less competitors.Second,this dissertation examines whether shared mobility services can alleviate traffic congestion during rush hours in the city.City traffic congestion can be categorized into rush-hour congestion and congestion in the other periods of the day.The mismatch of the traffic facilities primarily causes the congestion in other periods of the day.However,the rush-hour congestion always comes from the surge of varieties of travel needs,which leaves a great space for traffic demand management.This dissertation uses unique natural experiment settings to examine the alleviation effects of dockless bike-sharing services on the urban rush hour traffic congestion.The findings reveal that the demand for motor vehicles significantly decreased during rush hours by introducing bike-sharing platforms,thus reducing the vehicle flow and easing the road congestion.The findings also reveal that places with public transit stations experienced additional decrease in the motor vehicle demand.This additional decrease also applied to central areas of the city with heavy traffic loads,and those densely populated districts.Last,this dissertation verifies the possible synergy of shared mobility on urban public transportation.The public transportation system is an essential part of future transportation development of the cities,and city managers usually need to spend vast amounts of money to establish and maintain the public transportation system to ensure its efficient operation.However,with the emergence of shared mobility services,whether public transportation systems are promoted or reduced remains a big controversy.This research empirically studies the impact of the expansion of the subway system on the demand for ride-sharing service,and finds that the expansion of the subway system encourages more ride-sharing service users to use ride-sharing service to use subway transit.There exists a significant collaborative relationship between the subway transportation system and ride-sharing service.The opening of new subway lines exerts a ripple effect on existing subway stations.Using social network and complex network theory to analyze the changes of topology characteristics of the subway system,the findings reveal that the ripple effect is caused by the network level structural changes.