Optimizing the level of service quality of a bike-sharing system

Public bike-sharing programs have been deployed in hundreds of cities worldwide, improving mobility in a socially equitable and environmentally sustainable way. However, the quality of the service is drastically affected by imbalances in the distribution of bicycles among stations. We address this problem in two stages. First, we estimate the unsatisfied demand (lack of free lockers or lack of bicycles) at each station for a given time period in the future and for each possible number of bicycles at the beginning of the period. In a second stage, we use these estimates to guide our redistribution algorithms. Computational results using real data from the bike-sharing system in Palma de Mallorca (Spain) are reported. •A new procedure for static repositioning in a bike-sharing system is proposed.•The demands of each station at each time are estimated using the system data.•The number of bikes at each station is determined to minimize unsatisfied demand.•Repositioning routes are built for each vehicle, minimizing the total distance.•The procedure can be used to explore alternative configurations of the system.