Investigation on the impact of new bike stations on a bike-share system based on a complex bike-sharing network

Abstract The effect of newly introduced bike stations on bike-share systems at the system, community, and station levels is investigated in this study. Changes in the topological properties of a bike-share traffic network and its subnetworks defined through community detection are examined using a network analysis methodology that has been relatively underexplored in previous studies despite its significance and utility. Centrality and network flow measures are employed to assess the effects of new bike stations on both individual stations and communities. The findings reveal that introducing new bike stations significantly enhances station connectivity and overall bike usage. However, the impact varies across communities and existing bike stations; notably, spatial relationships with preexisting stations tend to diminish the influence of new stations. This study also establishes a correlation between the utilization of new bike stations and the centrality and network flow of existing neighboring stations.