Bike Sharing Dataset

Bike sharing systems are new generation of traditional bike rentals where whole process from membership, rental and return back has become automatic. Through these systems, user is able to easily rent a bike from a particular position and return back at another position. Currently, there are about over 500 bike-sharing programs around the world which is composed of over 500 thousands bicycles. Today, there exists great interest in these systems due to their important role in traffic, environmental and health issues. Apart from interesting real world applications of bike sharing systems, the characteristics of data being generated by these systems make them attractive for the research. Opposed to other transport services such as bus or subway, the duration of travel, departure and arrival position is explicitly recorded in these systems. This feature turns bike sharing system into a virtual sensor network that can be used for sensing mobility in the city. Hence, it is expected that most of important events in the city could be detected via monitoring these data.

共享单车系统是传统自行车租赁业务的新一代升级形态，其会员注册、车辆租赁与归还全流程均已实现自动化。依托此类系统，用户可便捷地在指定点位取车，并在其他任意点位还车。目前，全球范围内已有超500个共享单车项目，运营车辆总数逾50万辆。如今，鉴于其在交通、环保与公共健康领域的重要作用，共享单车系统受到了广泛关注。
除了具备极具价值的现实应用场景外，共享单车系统所产生的数据集特性，也使其成为学术研究的热门对象。与公交、地铁等其他公共交通服务不同，共享单车系统会完整记录用户的出行时长、出发点位与抵达点位。这一特性使得共享单车系统可被视作一座虚拟传感网络，用于感知城市的人员流动状况。因此，通过监测此类数据，有望识别城市中绝大多数重要事件。