Spatio-temporal dynamics and recovery of commuting activities via bike-sharing around COVID-19: A case study of New York

Abstract

The COVID-19 has led to significant changes in urban travel behaviors, with commuting being one of the most affected travel modes. Commuting cycling by bike-sharing systems (BSS) is regarded as a new transportation mode that is low-carbon and low-cost. However, its dynamic changes and spatiotemporal characteristics in different periods of COVID-19 still lack exploration. Therefore, this study adopts machine learning methods to identify commuter bike-sharing activities and develops a combined analysis method to analyze commuting cycling data via temporal, spatial, and spatiotemporal aggregation. Finally, we select the bike-sharing data in New York City from periods before, during, and after COVID-19 to conduct experiments. It has been found that commuting cycling experienced a “decrease-rebound” trend at the macroscopic level under the pandemic impact. However, at the micro level, urban mobility driven by this travel mode failed to fully recover, as evidenced by significant changes in spatial and temporal mobility patterns. The findings shall not only help traffic operators and managers discover the BSS commuting patterns but also reveal the pandemic impact on the travel behavior of urban residents, promoting the development of intelligent services for urban emergency management and traffic management.