journal article·2025-06-01Open access

The Spatial and Non-Spatial Analyses of the Bike-Sharing Service in Small Urban Areas in Slovakia: The Case Study

Stanislav Kubaľák, Kristína Ovary Bulková, Martin Holienčík

Applied Sciences· Volume 15· Issue 11

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to develop a case study of the recent situation of a bike-sharing service in a chosen small urban area. Žilina is situated in northern Slovakia, with a population exceeding 80,000 and an area of 80.03 km2. This study represents a complex analysis of the available data on a bike-sharing service, as well as data on bicycle rentals from a local provider. Both were processed by the QGIS software. First, the number of rentals and the attractiveness of the bicycle stations were evaluated, taking into account the seasons from 2019 to the end of the 2023 season. Spatial analysis, based on marking the availability of the isochrones of the 32 bike-sharing stations at the end of the season 2024, was conducted considering the map’s characteristics. The analysis was supplemented with a questionnaire survey of bike-sharing service users. This study provides an overall view of the recent situation of a bike-sharing service operating for five years in a small urban area with the intention of identifying deficiencies and improving the service for future system expansion. The originality of this paper lies in the processing of a wide dataset with an extensive set of control variables and the connection of spatial and non-spatial analyses. The approaches and results can serve as proposals for introducing or designing bike-sharing services in other small urban areas for researchers.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Urban Transport and Accessibility · Migration, Aging, and Tourism Studies · Recreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management

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Affiliations

Department of Quantitative Methods and Economic Informatics, Faculty of Operation and Economics of Transport and Communication, University of Žilina, 010 01 Žilina, Slovakia

Funding

Institutional Research of the Faculty of Operation and Economics of Transport and Communications, University of Zilina

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