Unveiling E-Bike Potential for Commuting Trips from GPS Traces

Common goals of sustainable mobility approaches are to reduce the need for travel, to facilitate modal shifts, to decrease trip distances and to improve energy efficiency in the transportation systems. Among these issues, modal shift plays an important role for the adoption of vehicles with fewer or zero emissions. Nowadays, the electric bike (e-bike) is becoming a valid alternative to cars in urban areas. However, to promote modal shift, a better understanding of the mobility behaviour of e-bike users is required. In this paper, we investigate the mobility habits of e-bikers using GPS data collected in Belgium from 2014 to 2015. By analysing more than 10,000 trips, we provide insights about e-bike trip features such as: distance, duration and speed. In addition, we offer a deep look into which routes are preferred by bike owners in terms of their physical characteristics and how weather influences e-bike usage. Results show that trips with higher travel distances are performed during working days and are correlated with higher average speeds. Usage patterns extracted from our data set also indicate that e-bikes are preferred for commuting (home-work) and business (work related) trips rather than for recreational trips.