Design and Implementation of a Bikesharing Service as part of an open Mobility-Ecosystem

Abstract 

There is an influx of various sharing services in the market at the moment. Yet none of them have a general interface which can be used by various platforms. Each customer therefore ends up with many different applications on
their smartphone just for traveling alone, examples being: public transport, carsharing, bikesharing etc. An open mobility ecosystem would be an ideal solution, which would allow the integrations of all these services in one ap-
plication. This one application would be able to calculate the routing and combine other factors depending on the different means of transport and allowing the user to purchase tickets etc. 

This thesis not only shed light on the proposed system, but also focuses on defining a generic REST interface and implementing it on a bikesharing service called Sharelock from the iteratec GmbH. This interface provides all the necessary gateways and functions that an open mobility ecosystem needs to integrate the service. Furthermore, the different needs and possibilities for locks which are online or offline are also characterized, since they each have their own advantages and disadvantages. Additionally, this thesis also covers the development of the backend as well as the administration frontend to operate the bikesharing and the client application (Android) to use it.

Finally, Sharelock was evaluated by working students from the iteratec GmbH and scored a high usability score. However, not all functionalities could be tested due to the lock technology still being under development. Nevertheless, this thesis shows that it is possible to build a system for an open mobility ecosystem.

Video of the application: SharelockApp.MOV

Keywords: bike sharing, mobility ecosystem, REST interface, TUM-LLCM

Core literature

DeMaio, P.: Bike-sharing: History, Impacts, Models of Provision, and Future. Journal of Public Transportation. 12(4). 2009

CiViTAS: http://www.civitas.eu/

BikeSharePhiladelphia: http://www.bikesharephiladelphia.org/learn/history/