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The Free-Floating Bike-Sharing system (FFBSS) connects users to public transit networks and is an important component of the "last-mile" transport network. However, the rapid development of the FFBSS in China has significantly increased the local municipal workload and deteriorated the public transport. To mitigate these negative impacts, the Chinese government has launched a pilot project of electronic fence spots, by selecting several bike-sharing parking spots from the existing ones to set up the virtual stations. Compared to the traditional public shared bicycles with fixed stations, the flexibility of choosing parking spots could dynamically cater the fast-changing traffic environment and facilitate the renting and returning for users and, therefore, render a more sparse and complicate parking spots network. In this paper, we study the location selection of bike-sharing parking points as a multidimensional problem, which considers not only the interests of users and stakeholders but also the environment and safety issues. We propose a multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) model including the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the weight-restricted data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to evaluate and determine the optimal bike-sharing parking points. Since the additional weight restrictions in the DEA method might lead to infeasible solutions, we introduce the weight restrictions feasibility theorem to avoid such infeasibility in the proposed weight-restricted DEA model, which has not been thoroughly studied in the literature. Specifically, a hyperplane adjusting model is developed to adjust the infeasible results. In the computational study, we evaluate 36 current parking spots in three regions in Beijing, China, to verify the rationality of the combined approach and put forward some managerial suggestions for this pilot project in Beijing, China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, many cities are building themselves the transit metropolis, and the reasonable evaluation of level of service (LOS) of public transport system (PTS) is one important aspect. However, to determine the overall LOS is hard because the distribution of service in PTS is not homogeneous with regard to time and space. To address this problem, this study proposes a general framework to determine the LOS scale of PTS based on the distribution of service quality. Under the framework, two classification methods are discussed. Method 1 uses two parameters, the mean and coefficient of variation to model the distribution, and Method 2 is an existing approach that only considers mean. Then the specific use of the framework is expounded for the service attribute of crowding, and Beijing subway line LOS is evaluated. The line LOS is divided into I–IV, whose threshold is expressed as a function of mean and coefficient of variation. The results show that 57.8% of the sample points are in the most crowding level IV in morning peak hours by Method 1, but 60.9% of sample points are in a comfortable level II by Method 2, and the former is more consistent with reality. In addition, it reveals which lines and time periods need to improve the service level. The research proves the feasibility of considering the service distribution to determine the overall LOS of PTS, and it is useful for capturing more detailed information of the system performance in time and space. This research can provide an approach for evaluating and helping to improve the overall service level of PTS for public transport authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this paper is to demonstrate and validate the necessity of reforming Beijing to a public transit oriented (PTO) city from the view of transportation equity. Equity is believed to be of significant importance to the development of sustainable transportation. This paper presents a comparison of the transportation structure in Beijing with that in other big cities around the world using Cluster Analysis. To accomplish the objective, a road spatial recourse analyzing model is used. This model describes how to distribute road spatial resources fairly to private cars, taxies, and buses. Furthermore, a survey on the satisfactory degree about the first bus rapid transit (BRT) line in Beijing from 8 aspects was conducted. An average score between 4.5 and 3.5 out of 5 demonstrates that the residents are satisfied with the BRT line. Results of this study show the feasibility and creditability in applying PTO transportation structure in Beijing. It is emphasized that more attention should be paid to public transit and it should be the orientation of Beijing's transportation system developed for the consideration of transportation equity. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]