City Bike Network Analysis for Bike Sharing System

R. Nagha Akshayaa1 , K Dhipika2, Keerthana V3, Krithika R4

1,2,3,4
Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai, India
E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected];
[email protected]; [email protected]

R. NAGHA AKSHAYAA 20BCE1325

KRITHIKA R 20BCE1326
DHIPIKA K 20BCE1340
KEERTHANA R 20BCE1561

Abstract

Bike-sharing systems (BSSs) not only facilitate people with the trouble of “the first and last
mile” but also provide them with a sustainable and carbon-free mode of transportation. In
1965, an NGO called Provo established a public bicycle system (PBS) to reduce air pollution
and relieve traffic congestion in Amsterdam, which is regarded as the prototype of BSSs. To
know how people use it on a daily basis is a fundamental resource to plan future expansions
and to make the most out of the public investments.For the past decades, transportation
systems are commonly analyzed as networks. This abstraction allows to reduce the amount of
information available and focus primarily on the internal structure of the underlying systems.
This project analyses the bike-sharing system of urban cities by working on open dataset of
“Helsinki City Bikes”. Here, we present an analysis of the bicycle-sharing system using
networks.

Introduction

Bike sharing has gained popularity as a sustainable mode of transportation, especially with the
increasing need for environmentally friendly options. The availability of large amounts of
bike sharing data due to technological advancements presents opportunities to study urban
mobility patterns and understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of human activities in
cities. However, the uneven distribution of activities in cities can lead to imbalances in bike-
sharing systems, requiring management strategies for rebalancing. The development of
analytical frameworks and tools can help address these challenges and improve the
sustainability and efficiency of bike-sharing systems. The analysis of bike-sharing data is
crucial for promoting sustainable urban transportation and improving city living.

This paper proposes a framework to understand spatio-temporal patterns of bike riding flows
and their impact on bike management. Centrality measures are utilized to identify important
nodes or edges within a network in bike-sharing networks. These measures can identify key
locations or routes where a large number of trips begin or end, aiding urban planning and
bike-sharing operations. Degree, betweenness, closeness, eigen vector, and pagerank
centrality measures are applied to the bike-sharing network in this study.

The analysis of Helsinki City Bike network can benefit from community detection as it
provides valuable insights into user behavior and network usage. The identification of stations
that are frequently used together can aid in the expansion and improvement of the network for
better user experience. The study used the Louvain method and fluid community method for
community detection, with modularity optimization and fluidity as their respective underlying
concepts. This information can help system operators optimize bike allocation and
rebalancing, and urban planners gain a better understanding of mobility patterns. Overall,
community detection can assist in the design and management of bike sharing systems, and
improve decision-making for urban transportation planning.

Literature Review

In the study performed by authors in [1], taxi trajectory data from Chengdu and New York
City was analyzed using complex network theory to gain insight into urban structure and
human mobility. The urban trip networks are constructed and analyzed in terms of low-order
organization (degree distribution, cluster-degree coefficient, rich-club coefficient), meso-
order organization (community detection), and higher-order organization (critical nodes and
regions). The goal is to understand the relationship between human mobility and urban
characteristics, as well as to potentially improve urban planning. The findings help to better
understand the urban structure and human mobility. The results show a relationship between
network density and trip distance, heterogeneity in the Chengdu urban trip network,
mismatched community boundaries with administrative boundaries, and critical nodes and
regions in the urban trip networks. These findings have potential applications for urban
planning.

This paper [2] focuses on bike-sharing systems (BSSs) and the studies that have been
conducted on them. The authors note that despite the benefits of BSSs in terms of reducing air
pollution and traffic congestion, issues such as untimely rebalancing operations and
unreasonable station distributions have led to a decrease in user satisfaction and an increase in
maintenance costs. They also mention that many studies have been done on the factors that
affect the usage of bike-sharing, such as the characteristics of users and stations, weather
conditions, and relationship with other means of transportation. However, there is a lack of
research on the relationship between the internal stations of BSSs. To address this gap, the
authors aim to build public bicycle networks using Gephi software to analyze the internal
correlation characteristics of BSSs. In conclusion, by analyzing the relationship between
stations in a bike-sharing system, this study provides insights into the internal characteristics
of a public bicycle system. The findings indicate that the usage of public bicycles is related to
both land use and the usage of bikes at nearby stations. Furthermore, the results show that
there are both high-demand and low-demand areas for public bicycles, with the average
service coverage meeting the intended purpose of "the first and last mile". These insights can
inform decision-making in the operation and maintenance of bike-sharing systems, improving
their efficiency and benefits for users.

The authors in [3] analyzed the Bike Share System (BSS) which is a sustainable and non-
motorized mode of transportation that is used for short to medium distance trips. The
"Location Problem" refers to finding the best locations for bike stations to maximize demand
coverage. Public-Private Partnerships are responsible for implementing BSS, but optimizing
location is important to maximize benefits due to budget constraints. They have used PIS and
NIS to determine the most and least important bike stations, respectively, and decision makers
can improve network efficiency by identifying new bike station locations or relocating the
least important ones. The methodology which is proposed in this paper combines the Maximal
Covering Location Problem (MCLP) and bike station importance to achieve the maximum
BSS demand coverage within a specified service distance, which is a pre-defined threshold
around a bike station. The three criteria used to measure the centrality of a BSS network are
Betweenness Centrality (BC), Closeness Centrality (CC), and Degree Centrality (DC). The
methodology applies Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order
Preference by Similarity to Ideal Object (TOPSIS) to determine the weights of each criterion
and to rank the alternatives. The dataset used in this study is a historical data of one million
bike trips in the fourth quarter of 2018, obtained from the CBSS network website. The
network only covers Washington D.C and contains 99 bike stations. The paper presents a case
study to demonstrate the application of the new methodology and to compare its results with
existing methods.

This paper [4] focuses on analyzing the urban public transportation networks or systems
(PTN) of Hungarian five cities. Although unweighted networks were frequently the focus of
earlier research, this analysis novelty is that it takes into account directed and weighted links,
where the weights correspond to the carrying capabilities of the buses, trams, and trolleybuses
during morning rush hour. Global network characteristics like diameter, average path length,
eccentricity distribution, degree distribution, community structure, and, node centrality
measures like degree centrality, local average connectivity, closeness centrality, betweenness
centrality, page-rank centrality, extended centrality measures for weighted networks, were
calculated in both weighted and unweighted case. A highly detailed picture of the variations
in public transportation organization that may be caused by historical and geographical factors
was obtained by comparing the data obtained for the various cities. Additionally, by
contrasting the findings in the weighted and unweighted examples, the centralities were
compared, and overcrowded stops and underutilized stops with spare capacity were found.
The most vulnerable stations and routes in the network that highlight certain organizational
irregularities in the transportation system could also be found. They come to the conclusion
that the key structural components and organizing principles of the public transportation
systems can be revealed using the complex network approach and graph theoretic
measurements that were taken into account.

The authors of paper [5] argued that the structure of a city is largely dependent on the travel
patterns of its people. To support this argument, they have analyzed GPS-enabled taxi data
collected in Shanghai and China using complex network science methods to explore the
structure of intra-city flows. More attention is given to patterns of trips of shorter lengths
which are often preferred since they are affordable for majority residents in daily lives. The
final dataset contained attributes such as taxi ID, pick-up time, pick-up point coordinates,
drop-off tie, drop-off point coordinates and trip length. This data was converted into a graph
network with sources and destinations as nodes and trips between them as links. Community
detection from the network was done using the Infomap algorithm, which can handle
weighted and directed networks and perform quickly. To reveal the underlying structure, they
have first detected clustered sub-networks of short distance trips to find a basic structure and
slowly added trips of longer distances. After this, finally a two-level hierarchical nature of the
city structure was revealed. The density, node strength, betweenness centrality, closeness
centrality, normalized betweenness centrality and normalized closeness centrality are
calculated to analyze spatial interactions represented by taxi trips and to draw conclusions.

The identification of hierarchical structure and explanations of the underlying mechanisms

can contribute towards transportation planning of urban cities. The sub-regional borders
formed during clustering helped in identifying areas of local centers [5]. Therefore, policies
can be made to improve accessibility to these local centers, or to reduce the total amount of
travel. With cities becoming more complex, it is important that necessary policies are
implemented to improve the travel in the city.

The paper [6] presents a complex network analysis of passenger travel routes in rail and bus
transport public systems, in the island of Singapore. The network from this dataset contains
more than 4130 nodes. The characteristics of this data is compared with previously studied
transport systems like the Indian railway, Boston subway, Chinese railway and the worldwide
airport network. The study also highlights the importance of both topological and dynamical
properties of the networks. The degree, strength, clustering, assortativity and the eigenvector
centrality of this network are also calculated and reported. From this, it is noted that the
dynamical properties of the network varied differently from its topological properties. From a
topological view, the network is similar to a highly connected ER random graph, which tells
that almost all nodes are traveled from one to another. This indicates that the graph is almost
fully connected, with high clustering. But with dynamical analysis, a more complex system is
revealed, where some regions have higher traffic when compared to others. From the
eigenvector analysis, it was concluded that the traffic differs depending on the day of the
week, thus indicating the importance of temporal effects. But the study has a main
disadvantage, which is that it analyzes only a week’s data. When this analysis is performed on
data of larger scale, more inferences such as the differences in travel patterns among weeks or
years can be made. Although the study was done only on transportation data, it can also be
used on other classes of networks.

In this study [7], the network topology and nodal centrality of specific Chinese cities in the air
transport network of China(ATNC) are examined using a complex network technique. Degree
distribution, average path length, and clustering coefficient are metrics characterizing network
structure as a whole. The dataset came from the CAAC, or Civil Aviation Administration of
China (2009). This paper assesses the network structure measures like Degree distribution,
Average path length, Clustering coefficient. It calculates Centrality measures like Degree
centrality, Closeness centrality, Betweenness centrality and takes in account Correlation
measures like Degree correlation, Clustering-degree correlation. The degree, closeness, and
betweenness metrics for each city describe the advantages of a node's position as being
directly linked to others, accessible to others, and the mediator between others, respectively.
The results show that the ATNC exhibits some small-world (SW) network traits with an
average path length of 2.23 and a clustering coefficient of 0.69, and has a cumulative degree
distribution described by an exponential function. All three centrality indices have strong
correlations with socioeconomic city measures like population, gross regional domestic
product, and air passenger traffic (GRDP). The overall network structure and centrality of
each city in the ATNC has been examined in this study using network analysis indices, and
the geographical patterns of the cities are analyzed in connection to economic and geographic
aspects. This confirms that centrality captures an essential component of location advantage in
the ATNC and has significant effects on the spatial distribution of economic activities.

Proposed Work

1. Network Centrality Measure: Complex networks by definition are highly heterogeneous

structures. This often results in some parts of the network being more information-rich
than others. For example, in social networks, some individuals might have a large number
of connections and can spread information faster than others. Hence, within the context of
social network analysis, the nodes that represent them are considered more
important(central). Within the context of transportation networks, an urban region where
the influx of people is higher than in the other areas can be considered central. However,
the centrality of a given network may change over time as a result of the growth and
evolution of the underlying system. Thus, the definition of centrality is not absolute but
rather depends on the specific context and the purpose of the abstraction. Taking this
relativity into account, several centrality measures have been proposed that focus on
different types of relationships between the nodes.

1.1. Degree Centrality : “Degree” of a node refers to the number of nodes that a given
node is connected to. Degree centrality is the simplest measure of node connectivity.
Sometimes it’s useful to look at in-degree (number of inbound links) and out-degree
 (number of outbound links) as distinct measures. Within the context of city bikes, this
refers to the number of bike stations that users have traveled to from the target station.
This could potentially help us in identifying whether any important place or hub is
nearby a bike station.

1.2. Betweenness Centrality: Betweenness centrality measures the number of times a

node lies on the shortest path between other nodes. Betweenness is useful for
analyzing communication dynamics. A high betweenness count could indicate
someone holds authority over disparate clusters in a network, or just that they are on
the periphery of both clusters. It helps us in finding important traffic points while
moving from one area to another area.

1.3. Closeness Centrality: Closeness centrality is a way of detecting nodes that are able
to distribute flows efficiently through the network. The closeness centrality is
calculated as the normalized average of all of its geodesic distances. Here, in our
module, a node with high closeness centrality will indicate stations that can
potentially act as versatile intermediary stations within the network. It helps us in
giving necessary inputs for network optimization.

1.4. Eigenvector Centrality: Eigen Centrality measures a node’s influence based on the
number of links it has to other nodes in the network. Eigen Centrality then goes a step
further by also taking into account how well connected a node is, and how many links
their connections have, and so on through the network. Eigenvector centrality in
individual transportation networks allows highlighting not only important singular
nodes but also geographically important areas within the city. This is possible
because it acknowledges not only the importance of individual station but also the
importance of stations adjacent to them.

1.5. PageRank: PageRank is a variant of EigenCentrality, also assigning nodes a score

based on their connections, and their connections’ connections. The difference is that
PageRank also takes link direction and weight into account – so links can only pass
influence in one direction, and pass different amounts of influence.

2. Community Detection: Communities in networks refer to groups of nodes that are

densely connected internally. Community detection is often a crucial process for
understanding the structure of complex networks. In the case of the city bike network,
community detection can help to better understand bike usage patterns and determine
adequate pricing models and also about expanding new bike stations in those have dense
communities. This can be done by applying various methods like agglomerative and
divisive methods using various algorithms like Louvain Community Detection, Combo
Community Detection, etc.
Results and Discussion
The visualization of the graph network reveals several key insights. Firstly, the network is
highly interconnected, with numerous edges connecting the 347 nodes. Additionally, certain
nodes appear to have a much higher degree of connectivity than others, suggesting that they
may be central to the overall structure of the network. Moreover, there appears to be some
clustering within the network, with groups of nodes more densely connected to each other
than to nodes outside of their cluster. This could indicate the presence of distinct sub-
networks or communities within the larger network. The bike graph network with 347 nodes
and 29604 edges is depicted in Figure 1, while Table 1 provides an overview of the
fundamental characteristics of the network.

Figure 1: Visualisation of Helsinki Bike Graph Network

No. of Nodes 347

No of edges 29604
Average Degree 170.62
Network Density 0.4931
Triadic Closure 0.7490
TABLE 1: General Information about the network

NETWORK CENTRALITY MEASURES:

DEGREE CENTRALITY :

The degree centrality analysis of the bike network revealed several key findings. Firstly, the
degree distribution of the network was found to be highly skewed, with a small number of
nodes having a much higher degree than the majority of nodes. This indicates the presence of
a few highly connected "hub" nodes within the network. Fig [2] represents the visualisation of
degree centrality and Fig [3] represents the histogram of degree centrality.
 Figure 2 – Degree Centrality of City Bike Analysis

Figure 3 – Degree Centrality of City Bike Analysis

Table 2 shows the top 10 cities with highest degree centralities. The high ranking of
Haukilahdenkatu station on the list implies that a significant number of individuals from
various districts regularly commute to and from this station. This could indicate that the
station is situated near a major transportation hub or a significant point of interest. Further
investigation via a simple online search reveals that the station is situated across from a
sizable educational institution and a center for work rehabilitation, providing a plausible
explanation for the consistent traffic and diverse population from surrounding suburban areas.
This gives reasonable explanation to why it has high degree centrality since many people in
and around uses bike to travel here.

City Name No of Degree Degree Centrality

Haukilahdenkatu 312 0.90173
Paciuksenkaari 272 0.78612
Huopalahdentie 267 0.7716
Laajalahden aukio 262 0.75722
Munkkiniemen aukio 262 0.75722
Töölöntulli 260 0.75144
Tilkanvierto 259 0.74855
Paciuksenkatu 258 0.74564
Pasilan asema 258 0.74564
Esterinportti 256 0.73984
TABLE 2 – DEGREE CENTRALITY ANALYSIS

BETWEENNESS CENTRALITY :

Lehtisaarentie station is the node with the highest betweenness centrality, which illustrates
how geographic constraints can shape the structure of spatial networks. The station is situated
on Lehtisaari island, which serves as a link between Aalto University campus, Munkkiniemi,
and Helsinki. Due to the unique features of the Helsinki archipelago, traffic between
municipalities is mainly routed through island-bridge systems, with Lehtisaari and Lautasarri
islands serving as vital traffic nodes connecting Espoo municipality to Helsinki. As such, the
significant betweenness centrality of the Lehtisaarentie station highlights its crucial role in
facilitating transportation between these areas. Fig [4] represents the betweenness
visualisation.

Figure 4 – Interactive Betweenness Centrality Visualisation

CLOSENESS CENTRALITY :

The higher the closeness centrality, the more central a node is to the network. Looking at the
top 10 locations with the highest closeness centrality, we can see that Haukilahdenkatu has the
highest centrality value, which means it is the most central location in the network.
Lehtisaarentie, Lauttasaaren ostoskeskus, and Aalto-yliopisto (M), Korkeakouluaukio are also
relatively central locations in the network.
Haukilahdenkatu station stands out as having the highest closeness centrality in the network,
followed by other nodes in the Töölö and Pasila areas. Closeness centrality could be a useful
metric for optimizing larger networks, such as bike-sharing networks, where users may want
to stop at intermediary stations to avoid extra fees. However, as we noted in the previous
section, long trips are not very common in Helsinki.

Figure 5 – Closeness Centrality Visualisation

EIGENVECTOR CENTRALITY and PAGE RANK:

Eigenvector centrality is a metric that evaluates the importance of a node in a network, taking
into account the importance of its neighboring nodes. The connections to nodes with high
eigenvector centrality have a greater impact on the node's score than connections to nodes
with lower scores. Essentially, a node that has many connections may have a low eigenvector
score if all of its connections are with nodes that have low scores. PageRank is a variation of
normalized eigenvector centrality combined with random jumps. Thus, both are expexted to
give similar results. Figure 6 shows eigen vector visualisation.

The top 10 important nodes by Eigenvector Centrality suggest that Haukilahdenkatu,

Töölöntulli, Paciuksenkaari, and Pasilan asema are among the most important nodes in the
network.

The reasons behind them being the important places are started below:
1. Haukilahdenkatu: This station is located in the western part of Helsinki, close to the
Haukilahti beach area. It is a popular station for locals and tourists alike, as it provides
access to the beach and nearby parks. Additionally, the station is located near a
number of residential areas, making it a convenient starting or ending point for bike
trips.
 2. Töölöntulli: This station is located in the Töölö neighborhood of Helsinki, near the
Töölö Sports Hall and the Helsinki Olympic Stadium. It is a busy station due to its
proximity to these popular sports venues, as well as its location along several major
roads and public transit routes.

3. Paciuksenkaari: This station is located in the Lauttasaari neighborhood of Helsinki,

near the Lauttasaari Bridge which connects the island of Lauttasaari to the mainland. It
is a popular station for commuters who live on the island and work in the city center,
as well as for tourists visiting the nearby Lauttasaari Nature Park.

4. Pasilan asema: This station is located in the Pasila neighborhood of Helsinki, near the
Pasila railway station which is one of the busiest transit hubs in the city. It is a popular
station for commuters who work in the city center or in other parts of the Helsinki
metropolitan area, as well as for tourists who are visiting the nearby Hartwall Arena or
Helsinki Exhibition and Convention Centre.

Haukilahdenkatu 0.0813
Töölöntulli 0.07813
Paciuksenkaari 0.078
Pasilan asema 0.07794
Huopalahdentie 0.07724
TABLE 3 – TOP 5 IMPORTANT PLACES ACCORDING TO EIGENCENTRALITY

Figure 6 – Eigenvector Centrality Visualisation

COMMUNITY DETECTION:
Central stations together with nodes adjacent to them form small enclaves of activity. The identification of
this kind of groupings of nodes within the context of complex networks is commonly referred to as
community detection. Community detection can help to better understand bike usage patterns
and determine adequate pricing models.
LOUVAIN METHOD:

Figure 7 – Interactive Louvain Clustering Visualisation

This means that bike usage inside these four communities is higher than the bike usage
between these communities. Nodes with high betweenness centrality are usually the places
where the communities might be divided into modules. If we return to our betweenness
centrality graph this relationship will become even more evident. Boundaries of the
communities pass roughly through the nodes with high betweenness centrality.

Leppavara is more densely connected to Munkiniemi and Pitäjänmaki, and that some stations
around Sörnäinen are more densely connected to the Herttoniemi area. In the case of
Leppavara, it is located in the eastern part of Espoo, which is closer to Munkiniemi and
Pitäjänmaki than to Otniemi or Tapiola. As such, it is likely that there are more transport links
between Leppavara and Munkiniemi and Pitäjänmaki, making it easier for people to travel
between these areas. Additionally, there may be more shared services and amenities between
these areas, which could further encourage connections.

In the case of the stations around Sörnäinen, it is possible that the Herttoniemi area is more
accessible from these stations than other areas, either through direct transport links or through
more frequent and reliable connections. Additionally, there may be more shared services and
amenities between these areas, which could encourage people to travel between them more
frequently.
COMMUNITY FLUID METHOD:

Figure 8 – Community Fluid mechanism

1. The communities identified using the Louvain method are confirmed by the Fluid
community detection method, which also identifies an additional community.
2. One unique community, colored magenta, can be observed in Eastern Espoo. This
community is shaped by geographical limitations and extends towards the west along
the metro line.
3. Despite the district divisions that separate them, the districts of Leppävaara,
Pitäjanmaki, Munkiniemi, and Etelä Haaga form another cycling community colored
green.
4. Separated from the green community by Central Park, the areas of Vallila, Kapyla,
and Oulunkylä form another group colored pink. This community stretches along the
railroad in northern Helsinki.
5. The blue community encompasses the geographic centre of Helsinki and major
stations such as Kammpi and the central railway station. It also extends towards the
southern shoreline.
6. Lastly, the yellow community centered in Herttoniemi is at the heart of another
enclave that extends from Sornainen to Vuosaari along the metro line.
Community formation can be significantly affected by landmasses and large bodies of water.
This means that one of the major reasons behind the observed clusters of communities could
be the geography of the region. Landmasses can act as physical barriers, separating one area
from another, making it more difficult for people to travel between them. Similarly, large
bodies of water can also act as barriers, making it harder for people to cross from one side to
the other.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the centrality measures and community detection analysis of the Helsinki bike
data have revealed important insights into the city's transportation network and community
structure.

Centrality measures have shown that certain bike stations are more important than others in
terms of their connectivity to other stations, indicating their significance in the overall bike
network. These central stations can be utilized to improve the efficiency of the bike network
by strategically locating new stations and improving the connectivity of existing ones.

Community detection has revealed distinct communities of bike stations that are not
necessarily constrained by municipal borders, but rather shaped by geographic and
transportation factors. Understanding these communities can aid in the planning of
infrastructure and services to better meet the needs of different neighborhoods and
commuters.
Overall, the analysis of the Helsinki bike data has provided valuable insights into the city's
transportation network and community structure, highlighting the importance of considering
both centrality measures and community detection in urban planning and policy making.

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