The first Irish public Bike Sharing Scheme (BSS) was launched in Dublin in 2009.
Dublinbikes has been internationally recognised as one of the most successful bike-sharing
rental schemes in the world. For this reason, among others, the cities of Cork, Limerick and
Galway launched their own BSSs at the end of 2014.
The objective of this paper is to compare the performance of the four BSSs during the first
two years of implementation in each Irish city according to endogenous factors, such as the
physical design of the schemes, and exogenous factors, such as city size and population
density. In terms of population, Limerick and Galway are small cities, Cork is a mediumsized
city and Dublin is a large city. In consequence, the results cover the main relevant
aspects of BSSs according to the size of the scheme, pointing out similarities and differences
among BSS of different sizes. The main findings indicate that the number of daily rentals
per bike is a good metric from the point of view of the transport operator. However, a higher
density of bikes, stations and docking points does not imply greater usage, whereas the size
of the deployment area could be a key factor in improving bike usage. Finally, a synopsis of
the essential aspects to consider when designing a BSS deployment based on types of users
in small cities is provided.
