Spatiotemporal organization in bike-sharing systems using gravity model parameters

Abstract

Gravity models describe bike-sharing origin-destination (OD) flows as increasing with origin and destination activity and decreasing with distance. Yet how these relationships change within a day and across observation areas remains unclear. We examine temporal and spatial variation in origin, destination and distance exponents $α$, $β$, and $γ$, together with $R^2$ and mean absolute error (MAE), across eight bike-sharing systems. Temporal modeling uses sliding windows, while spatial modeling expands a circular area and separates intra-zonal, cross-zonal outflow, cross-zonal inflow and extra-zonal trips. We find recurring patterns across cities: morning and evening peaks differ in origin and destination dependence, while cross-zonal outflow and inflow across the same boundary show opposite changes in their relative origin and destination dependence as radius increases. Model performance and distance dependence also vary with time and radius. A full-day, citywide fit therefore combines time periods and flow types with different gravity relationships.