Case Study and Direction of Bicycle-Sharing Systems in Japanese Cities

Bicycle-sharing systems allow people to share bicycles with others, borrow and return them using multiple cycle ports, and register and pay for them with an IC card or smartphone. Because these systems are still new in Japan, few papers can be found on them, even in the National Institute of Informatics. The purpose of this article is to clarify the business purpose, issues, effects, features, numerical values, and direction of bicycle-sharing systems. Therefore, we selected 16 advanced cases nationwide and conducted a survey in 2019. As a result, it was clarified that the main issues facing bicycle-sharing systems are improving the ease of migration and supplementing public transportation, improving profitability, and so on.