Arlington County, VA bikesharing service saves members an estimated $2 million dollars in transportation spending.

May 2015 update to the Arlington County Capital Bikeshare Transit Development Plan.

Date Posted
02/27/2018
Identifier
2018-B01252
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Arlington County Capital Bikeshare: Progress Report and FY2016 - FY2021 TDP Update

Summary Information

Since 2010, the Capital Bikeshare service has connected a network of over 450 stations via 4,000 bicycles across several jurisdictions in the Washington, DC area including Arlington County, VA. Arlington County reported on progress on the service’s performance measures in its FY2016-FY2021 Transit Development Plan Update & Progress Report.



Methodology



The report uses Capital Bikeshare system reported statistics on Arlington County ridership and trip length as well as an annual user survey to compute the service performance metrics:

Average money saved by Bikeshare user (reported In user survey)

  • Total annual savings among all Arlington Capital Bikeshare users (calculated by multiplying number of Arlington County riders by average money saved)
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  • Average calories burned per trip (calculated based on trip length)
  • Total calories burned by Arlington County residents (calculated by multiplying total number of trips taken by Arlington County residents by average calories burned)
  • Ridership growth (system reported based on trip origin)

Findings

Results from 2013 to 2014 show increases in ridership, with slightly shorter trips as follows:

  • Ridership grew by 24 percent between FY2013 and FY2014 as the system expanded service.
  • The average annual number of trips per bicycle decreased slightly between 2013 and 2014 from 393 to 381. This decrease was expected as the system expanded to outside of Arlington’s Metrorail corridors where the highest ridership is located.
  • The service saved Arlington members a combined estimated $2 million dollars in transportation spending in 2014.
  • Overall the total calories burned by users grew to 14,390,372 calories in 2014, reflecting higher ridership.
  • Calories burned per trip decreased from 2013 to 2014, from 80 to 75 due to a decrease in average trip distance.
  • The service improved its operating cost recovery ratio from 59 percent in FY2013 to 63 percent in FY2014.


Arlington County intends to expand the bikesharing service, while working on increasing the diversity of the user base and reducing its dependency on Arlington County operating funds.