Project 2 – Preliminary analysis of Bluebikes data
ISSUE DATE: 6-Feb-2021
RELEASE: DRAFT
VERSION 0.1 DRAFT 1
FOUO: Commercial – Confidential
SYD
Outline
1 General trends and use patterns
2 Insights into 2020 forecast of bike trips
3 Insights into bike rebalance
4 Insights into target user group of bike share
2
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Q1
How many trips were there in each month of each year?
Total monthly trips of Bluebikes (2016-2019)
400000
363,254
350000
Total trips of
300000 363,254 in
Sep-2019
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
▪ Organic growth of number of trips from 2016 to 2019.
▪ May to October are hot seasons of bike share in Boston.
3
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Q2 How many different users were there in each month of
each year?
Total monthly trips of Bluebikes by user group
300000
281,041
250000
200000
150000
87,234
100000
50000
Customer Subscriber
▪ We can see clear seasonal pattern in the trend chart of monthly trips.
▪ In the peak season of 2019, the monthly trips by subscribers is
around 3 times of monthly trips by customers.
4
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Q3 How many different bikes were there in each month of
each year
Total monthly bikes used of Bluebikes by
user group
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
Customer Subscriber Linear (Subscriber)
▪ There is no significant difference of number of bike used between the
user groups of subscribers and customers.
▪ Higher number of subscribers might help improve the utilisation of
bikes shared.
5
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Q4 Which organisations are showing the most growth in
bike rentals
Growth% of 6 bike chare companies (2016-2019)
50.00% 300.00%
258.63%
40.00% Highest year-by- 250.00%
year growth% in 42.69%
bike share
Bluebikes
Steady and
30.00% solid growth in
200.00%
Capitalbikeshare
trips
Citibike
20.00% 150.00%
14.43% Divvybikes
An “industry Santander
10.00% benchmark” 100.00%
of growth% Baywheels
0.00% 50.00%
2016 2017 2018 2019
-10.00% 0.00%
▪ Baywheels (in the San Francisco Bay Area) has registered 258.6%
year-by-year growth in 2018.
▪ Bluebikes (in Boston) has a track record of steady upward growth
from 2016-2019, which looks very solid and healthy.
6
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Q5 If 2020 hadn’t been, well, what would you expect to
have seen … (1 of 3)
Year-by-year growth% in trips -
Forecast of # trips in 2020 -
industry benchmark
Bluebikes, Bluebikes
70.00% Baywheels, 300.00%
63.50% 3,000,000
60.00% 258.63%
200.00%
50.00% 2,500,000 2,522,523
40.00% 100.00% 2,000,000
30.00% 1,767,792
Citibike, 0.00% 1,500,000
20.00% 1,772,4
12.91% 1,236,198 1,313,776
15…
10.00% -100.00% 1,000,000
0.00% 500,000
-200.00%
-10.00% 2017 2018 2019 2020
(forecast) 0
-20.00% -300.00%
Year 2016 2017 2018 2019
Bluebikes Capitalbikeshare Citibike
Bluebikes Linear (Bluebikes)
Divvybikes Santander Baywheels
▪ 2020 will be a tough year for all bikeshare companies, with a rough-cut
forecast of growth% in trips on the left diagram.
▪ According to a rough-cut forecast, the number of trips of Bluebikes in 2020
will fall down to level in 2017 or 2016, in line with the general trend in the
whole industry.
7
FOUO: Commercial – Confidential
SYD
Q5 If 2020 hadn’t been, well, what would you expect to
have seen … (2 of 3)
#Trip Month by Month (Baywheels) #Trips Month by Month (Bluebikes)
250,000 300,000
281,041
219,322
200,000 250,000
175,212
Customer Customer
200,000
150,000
Subscriber 150,000 Subscriber
100,000 114,319
71,838 100,000
Linear (Customer) 82,213 Linear (Customer)
50,000 50,000
Linear Linear
0 (Subscriber) 0 (Subscriber)
6 9 12 3 6 9 12 3 6 9 12 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1
2017 2018 2019 2020
(blan 2016 2017 2018 2019 202
k) 0
▪ Month-by-month trend charts have been depicted of Bluebikes and a
benchmark bikeshare company – Baywheels in San Francisco.
▪ According to the benchmarking, the number of trips of Bluebikes has shown a
clear seasonal pattern and an upward steady organic grow trend.
▪ Even with the global COVID pandemic, we have reason to believe that the
number of trips of Bluebikes will have opportunity to bounce back robustly
once the pandemic is under control.
8
FOUO: Commercial – Confidential
SYD
Q5 If 2020 hadn’t been, well, what would you expect to
have seen … (3 of 3)
COVID-19
(black swan event)
Market competition
Key factors to 01
including M&A
02
consider … 16
03 Product – bike technology,
Match of demand & 15 easy to ride, reliability etc
supply based on big data
Product – supporting
04
Marketing technology, e.g. smart
14 lock
activities
05 Subscription – no
% damage of rental
13 Forecasting of deposit option
bikes
bike trips
Initial cost of bikes
06 Subscription -
12 subsidy
Weather
07
Utilisation of bikes 11
08 Consumer habit &
Availability of bikes 10 09
preference
A forecast model for Bluebikes Distribution of stations 9
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Q6 What was the longest journey? What do we know
about it? Start station: Glendale
Square (Ferry St at
Broadway)
Longest
Start time: 8/19/2019
2:25:56 PM
journey:
16.11
Duration: 1 hour
km !!!
56 minutes
Who was the rider?
- 40 years old
- Unknown gender
- Consumer (casual
rider)
End time: 8/19/2019
4:21:44 PM
End station: Belgrade
Ave at Walworth St
10
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Q7
How often do bikes need to be relocated? (1 of 2)
Total rebalanced bikes by year & by day
- Bluebikes
200,000 600.0
180,000 476.6
500.0
160,000
140,000
400.0 Total Rebalanced
120,000 Year rebalance bikes per day
100,000 321.1 300.0 2016 92,630 253.8
80,000 2017 88,161 241.5
200.0
60,000 2018 117,184 321.1
40,000 2019 173,963 476.6
100.0
20,000
0 0.0
2016 2017 2018 2019
Total rebalance Rebalanced bikes per day
▪ Number of rebalanced bikes have impact on operations, customer experience
and cost.
▪ Daily rebalanced bikes has been increasing from 2017-2019, indicating
challenge posed by rapid growth of bike trips and opening of new stations.
11
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SYD
Q7
How often do bikes need to be relocated? (2 of 2)
Station of
name # rebalance
Rebalance
190 Nashua Street at Red Auerbach Way 20727
107 Ames St at Main St 9173
80 MIT Stata Center at Vassar St / Main St 8939
11 Longwood Ave at Binney St 6606
24 Seaport Square - Seaport Blvd at Northern Ave 4311
69 Coolidge Corner - Beacon St at Centre St 3935
36 Copley Square - Dartmouth St at Boylston St 3612
14 HMS/HSPH - Avenue Louis Pasteur at Longwood Ave 3460
328 Grove St at Community Path 2619
78 Union Square - Somerville 2427
70 Harvard Kennedy School at Bennett St / Eliot St 2417
35 Arch St at Franklin St 2411
100 Davis Square 2373
189 Kendall T 2177
42 Boylston St at Arlington St 2137
109 West End Park 2103
▪ For top ‘busy’ stations where highest number of rebalance happened, certain
activities might be considered to relieve the pressure on imbalanced system:
- Encourage and subsidise bike riders to bring bikes from busy stations
- Build more stations or docks at busy areas
- Precisely predict and rebalance bikes when peak time finishes (based on
big data analytics)
- Optimise milk run route of rebalance field workers …
12
FOUO: Commercial – Confidential
SYD
Q8 How far is a typical journey?
Median trip distance by month by
user type
- Bluebikes
2.5000
1.99 KM
2.0000
1.5000 Customer
1.0000 Subscriber
Linear (Customer)
0.5000 1.60 KM
Linear (Subscriber)
0.0000
▪ In general, a typical Customer rides a journey
(1.99 km) a bit longer than a Subscriber (1.60 km).
▪ Across the whole year of 2019, the typical distance
of a ride by users of Bluebikes had been quite
consistent within the range of 1.5 km to 2.0 km.
13
FOUO: Commercial – Confidential
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Q9
What sort of people use these bikes, and when do they
use them? (1 of 3)
user_age_group count
U18 4,947
AGE_45~54 442,304
AGE_65+ 497,168
AGE_18~24 502,007
AGE_25~34 1,076,111
Demographic analysis
▪ The most ‘heavy users’ of service of Bluebikes are:
- Age group 25-34
- Age group 18-24
- Age group 65+
- And age group 45-54
14
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SYD
Q9
There is a ‘gender gap’ in bike ride, however women
riders are catching up (2 of 3)
Total rides per year of Consumers: Number of trips vs time slot of age
Male vs Female group 25 - 34 Women riders
90,000 81,967 (Consumer) of Bluebikes
80,000
70,000 5000
60,000
4000
50,000 43,183
40,000 3000
30,000 Total
2000
20,000
10,000 1000
0
2016 2018 2019 0
17 15 14 12 19 8 20 7 23 0 1 4
Male Female
Focus analysis of age group
25-34, female, Consumer
▪ From 2016-2019, the consumers of
women riders have been on the rise ▪ A customer segment has attracted attention
significantly. during data analysis: women riders at age
25-34, consumer (not subscriber yet).
▪ However there is still a ‘gender gap’
in terms of bike riding. ▪ This group of women riders:
- Have made big contribution to Bluebikes
trips
- Prefer to ride between 12-17 in the
afternoon
15
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Q9
What we can do to help women rider in Boston
(3 of 3)
User profile What Bluebikes can do to help
▪ Age: 25-34 ▪ Engineering: bike lanes, bike rack or
basket for groceries, bike height
▪ Role: student, teacher, professional,
mother … ▪ Evaluation: safety of neighbourhood /
station, cost, convenience
▪ Value of bike share in her eyes:
convenient to commute; save time; ▪ Education: campaign, event, bike friendly
health; lower cost; explore community
neighbourhood ▪ Encouragement: free pass, word of mouth,
▪ Concerns: safety; multi tasks in a day; guidance on best route
riding culture; no companion ▪ Enforcement: correct driver’s behaviour
▪ … 16
FOUO: Commercial – Confidential
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