Can bike-sharing contribute to transport justice? Exploring a municipal bike-sharing system

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Can bike-sharing contribute to transport justice? Exploring a municipal bike-sharing system

Henriksson, Malin / Wallsten, Anna / Ihlström, Jonas

Highlights • Bike-sharing systems can contribute to transport justice. • These systems typically only target already mobile groups. • Stakeholders must prioritise equality objectives to promote transport justice.

Abstract New mobility solutions have so far primarily been designed to meet the mobility needs of affluent user groups and have had limited impacts on objectives related to justice. This paper sheds light on a bike-sharing system implemented by a local authority in Sweden and discusses the findings in relation to the literature on transport justice. The study is based on a single case study and demonstrates that the system mainly attracts users who already have high accessibility. That docking stations were placed in low-income residential areas, combined with the fact that the price model was affordable, suggests that the system has potential to promote transport justice. The study indicates that this equality profile was primarily treated as an add-on in the design and setting up of the system.