Measuring the Influence of Climate and Weather factors on urban public bicycle usage - a case study of Suzhou

In recent years, public bicycles have achieved rapid development around the world. However, public bicycle travel is very sensitive to environmental factors. Weather and climate play a crucial role in users’ choice of bicycle travel. This paper mainly studies the influence of weather and climate factors on the use of public bicycles. Taking Suzhou City as an example, the key factors such as rainfall, temperature, wind scale and Air Quality Index(AQI) level were selected, and the hierarchical linear regression and optimal scale regression were used for comparative analysis: The goodness of fit of optimal scale regression is higher than that of hierarchical regression, so the optimal scale regression result is selected as the final result of this paper. The results showed that rainfall, temperature, wind scale and $A Q I$ level all had significant effects on the number of public bicycle rides in Suzhou. Linear regression model was established, and stepwise regression analysis was used to study the leading and lagging effect of weather factors on urban public bicycle travel volume. The results showed that rainfall variable has leading and lagging effect on the travel volume of public bicycles. The results of this study can provide assistance in alleviating the negative effects of various weather factors on public bicycle travel in various ways.