Institute of Transportation, MOTC

       In this study, we formulate and analyze a strategic design model for public bicycle distribution systems with strategic and operational concerns simultaneously. The key design decisions considered are: the number and locations of maintenance centers, the number of transport vehicles and which vehicle should be dispatched at which open maintenance center, the vehicle routing between open maintenance centers and the rental stations, and the transported qualities of vandalized bikes and usable bikes between stations and maintenance centers. The optimal design of this system requires an integrated view of the strategic decisions regarding the maintenance centers and vehicle investments, and operational decisions on how to dispatch vehicles to transport bicycle stocks between pickup and delivery stations and how to collect the vandalized bicycles from rental stations to maintenance centers. The purpose of this study is to create a formal model that provides such an integrated view. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer program. Finally, the model is applied to design a distribution system for U-Bike Taipei.