Developing a route calculator for e-bikes based on GPS data

Abstract

Electric-Assisted bikes, or e-bikes, are a low-carbon mode of transportation. Therefore, they could help in mitigating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions caused by the transportation sector. Indeed, they could replace personal cars for some trips. However, even if the use of e-bikes is developing in Europe, it is less the case in North America. In particular, little information is available regarding the use of e-bikes in Québec (Canada). In order to include them into transportation planning, it would be useful to know more precisely the potential routes that e-bikes could follow. Using GPS data from e-bike trials in the six major regions of Québec (Canada), we develop a route calculator dedicated to e-bikes by computing the cost of each link thanks to the observed speeds in the dataset. This calculator takes into account the slope and road category. The computed itineraries are coherent with the dataset and with another dataset containing trips from the e-bike sharing system in Montreal (Québec Region, Canada).