Performance analysis and improvement of the bike sharing system using closed Queuing Networks with Blocking Mechanism

Abstract

The Bike Sharing System is a sustainable urban transport solution that consists of a fleet of bikes placed in various stations. Users will be satisfied if they find available bikes at their departure station and free docks at the destination. Despite the regulation operations of the system provider (i.e., redistribution of bikes by truck) deeper modifications (bike fleet size or station capacity) are often necessary to ensure a satisfactory service rate. In this paper, we model a sub-graph of a Bike Sharing System using the closed queuing network with a Repetitive-Service-Random-Destination blocking mechanism. This model is solved using the Maximum Entropy Method. This model faithfully reproduces the system dynamics considering the limited capacity of stations. We analyze the performance, particularly, via an overall performance indicator of the system. The various control and monitoring decisions (fleet-size, capacity of stations, incoming and outgoing flow of bikes) are applied to find out the best performance levels. The results demonstrate that the overall performance is robust enough regarding the fleet size changes but it degrades with the increase of the stations' capacity. Finally, the arrival and departure flows control is an efficient and powerful operational leverage.