Document Description

After the processing of data and creation of targeted visualizations, the results of the Bike Share Case Study are finally consolidated and presented in this documents by way of answering the assigned core question:

How do annual members & casual riders use Cyclistic bikes differently?

In specific, the produced visualizations (i.e., plots, maps, and possibly tables) are analyzed to reveal a “story” of how Cyclistics’ bikes were used and, more importantly, how the rider types compare to each other. As stated in the Data Transformation step, this story of ridership are told in a such a way that the core question is comprehensively answered from different aspects of the bike sharing service.

Based on the insights presented, some recommendations are made to the supposed upcoming marketing campaign.

Analysis

1. Intensity of usage

According to figure 1, the examined period from August 01, 2021 to July 31, 2022 saw nearly 60% of the 4.63 millions bike trips were made by Cyclistics’ annual members. At first glance, these figures seem interesting, especially when it was mentioned in the case study that 70% of Cyclistics riders use the service for leisure. Nevertheless, it would be premature to draw conclusions now on possible correlations between ridership and use purposes. Furthermore, given the data set consisting of only anonymous bike trips, it is not possible to see how the number of member riders compares to that of casual riders.

Figure 1. Total ridership from 08.01.2021 to 07.31.2022

The total ridership in figure 1 is drilled down further in Figure 2 to show the utilized bike types. It can be seen from this bar chart that both ridership types used classic bikes more than electric bikes. Especially, around 75% of rides by member riders were made with classic bikes. One might conclude at this point that classic bike are the preferred among Cyclistics’ users, though it is worth checking whether preference is indeed the driving factor or something else (e.g., availability of electric bikes, price differentiation, etc.)

Figure 2. Ridership per bike type from 08.01.2021 to 07.31.2022

The bar chart in figure 2 also shows usage of “docked bikes” among casual riders. However, with Cyclistics bikes being tracked and eventually docked at stations, this term seems ambiguous, and could very well refer to either classic or electric bikes. The written scenario provided in the case study also does not help, as it is stated that Cyclistics offers a total of 4 bike types with completely different designations - traditional, reclining bikes, hand tricycles, and cargo bikes - from those shown in figure 2. This discrepancy could potentially lead to confusion in later decision-making, and is an oversight in the data cleaning and transformation process.

In figures 3, 4, and 5, the total ridership is drilled down in terms of time at different levels of detail. In figure 3, the bell-shape monthly ridership reflects the seasonal characteristics of Cyclistics bike-share service, with the ridership peaked during the summer months. With a flatter bell shape, the bike usage among member riders appear consistently more, as well as more consistent, throughout the year than that of casual riders, with around 120, 70, and 75 thousand trips made even in the winter months of December, January, and February, respectively. This insight suggests that Cyclistics’ member riders could be motivated to use the service by more than just convenience and leisure.

Figure 3. Monthly ridership from 08.01.2021 to 07.31.2022

The heat maps in figure 4 shed light on how Cyclistics’ bikes are used on a weekly basis. The horizontal distributions of colors - which represent the daily number of trips - across the maps appear consistent with the seasonal ridership as observed in figure 3. In terms of ridership per weekdays, member riders again demonstrate more consistent use of Cyclistics bikes throughout the week. In contrast, casual riders make bike trips most often during the weekend. Such patterns suggest a distinction in the purpose of bike use between member and casual riders.

Figure 4. Weekly ridership by weekday from 08.01.2021 to 07.31.2022

In figure 5, the daily ridership is broken down further into hours of days. While casual casual-type ridership gradually peaks towards the early afternoon, member riders appear to have used Cyclistics bikes more in the early morning and especially during the late afternoon - early evening. These high-use intervals among member riders happens to coincide with the daily commuting periods for most people.

Figure 5. Daily ridership by time of day

Finally, the effect of weather on Cyclistics ridership is examined in figure 6. As predicted, ridership tend to decrease under clearly adverse weather conditions (i.e, cold temperature and rain/snow), but appear to have been less affected by high wind speed. Member riders continue to demonstrate a more consistent behavior across the weather spectrum, while casual riders decidedly favored warm and dry days. This observation corroborate, once again, the notion that Cyclistics members use bike routinely and for more than leisure.

Figure 6. Effect of weather on Ridership

2. Location

Apart from examining the intensity of bike usage, some useful insights can be obtained from studying Cyclistics network of stations.

The maps in figures 7, 8, 9, 10 (which can be interacted with in Visualization - Maps) shows the popularity of Cyclistics’ stations based on their number of departures (bike checkout) and arrivals (bike check-in). These maps show the most popular stations - both as departure points and destinations - are located in the Chicago downtown area and along the coast line. In contrast, stations that are outside this area saw significantly lower traffic.

The utilization of stations differs between member and casual riders. Specifically, stations that enjoy high arrivals and departures of member riders (brighter dots on the maps) was spread relatively equally in both the downtown area and along the coast (figures 7 and 8). On the other hand, casual riders appear to have predominantly utilized coastal stations in the vicinity of the Navy Pier, with the most popular being Streeter Dr & Grand Ave (figures 9 and 10).

Figure 7. Popularity of start stations among member riders by number of departures

Figure 8. Popularity of end stations among member riders by number of arrivals

Figure 9. Popularity of start stations among casual riders by number of departures

Figure 10. Popularity of end stations among casual riders by number of arrivals

As wrap-up of the study on locations, figure 11 shows the mean distance made per trip by Cyclistics riders. In general, Cyclistics bikes are often used for short distances of around 2km, though the high standard deviation figures mean that the data varies widely and is not normally distributed. The bar chart also shows that casual riders consistently rode slightly longer distances than member riders.

Figure 11. Monthly mean ride distance with corresponding standard deviation values

3. Time

A similar analysis to the ride distance (figure 11) is carried out for the ride duration to fully describe how different rider types use Cyclistics bike differently during each ride/trip. Figure 12 shows that while casual riders rode similar distances to member riders (figure 11), they also took a significantly longer time on the bike. Once again, the patterns presented in figures 11 and 12 speak to the possible difference in the use purposes between member and casual riders.

Figure 12. Monthly mean ride duration with corresponding standard deviation values

Conclusion

Based on the above analyses, the following can be said about the utilization of Cyclistics bike-sharing service among member and casual riders in the span of 1 year from August 01, 2021 to July 31st, 2022:

Table 1. Characteristics of Cyclistics member and casual riders from 08.01.2021 to 07.31.2022

Member riders…	Casual riders…
…made nearly 60% of the the trips.	…used Cyclistics bikes/service less than member riders.
…used predominantly classic bikes.	…used classic bikes for the majority of trips.
…used Cyclistics bike-sharing service more consistently throughout all considered periods. Ridership coincides with weekdays and work-commuting periods of the day, and is less affected by the weather than that among casual riders.	…used Cyclistics bike-sharing service most often during the summer, during the weekend, during the early afternoon. Ridership was highly dependent on the weather condition.
…used Cyclistics bikes predominantly for traveling to and from Chicago downtown and coastal area.	…used Cyclistics bikes predominantly for traveling to and from Chicago coastal area.
…used Cyclistics bikes for traveling short distances quickly	…used Cyclistics bikes for traveling short distances more leisurely than member riders

Given these observations, it can be safely concluded, at least for the examined period, that Cyclistics member riders used the bike-sharing service for daily commute to work, while casual riders used the service mainly for leisure/recreational purposes. Should these characteristics be also consistent with those from previous years and/or periods (i.e., before the pandemic), and given the goal of encouraging users to sign up for membership, it would then be reasonable to gear the upcoming marketing campaign towards promoting the usefulness and practicality of Cyclistics’ bike-sharing service in daily commuting.

Recommendations

Based on the insights and proposed overall direction above, three recommendations to the marketing campaign can be made:

1. The campaign should engage in marketing/advertisement in social media to raise general awareness for the bike-sharing service as a practical, sustainable daily commuting options.
2. Along with the social media push, incentives for membership signups in terms of cost, service accessibility, and safety should be introduced. Some examples would be:

   • Free trial period or first-year discount offerings

   • Unlocked features on apps (if available) that would allow for checking bike availability, weather, or traffic.

   • Gifts that improve convenience and safety like raincoats, helmets, safety vest (for riding in the early morning as observed in figure 5), water bottle etc.

3. In the long run, Cyclistics might consider offering its bike sharing service as a long-term and integrated commuting options:

   • Since member riders use Cyclistics bikes to commute to work, it may be advantageous to work with local businesses/ companies to incentivise employees signups for Cyclistics. For instance, a company can include Cyclistics into the organization’s employee benefit program (like the concept of renting/granting company bikes seen in Europe).

   • Cyclistics can work with the city/county to integrate Cyclistics into its overall public transportation scheme. This could allow people who do not own a car to travel to the city by train or bus, then use Cyclistics bike to arrive at their workplace under a single ID/metro card.