Scalability evaluation of forecasting methods applied to bicycle sharing systems

Public Bicycle Sharing Systems have spread in many cities for the last decade. The need of analysis tools to predict the behavior or estimate balancing needs has fostered a wide set of approaches that consider many variables. Often, these approaches use a single scenario to evaluate their algorithms...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Cortez Ordóñez, Alexandra Piedad|||0000-0002-0016-5388, Vázquez Alcocer, Pere Pau|||0000-0003-4638-4065, Sánchez Espigares, Josep Anton|||0000-0001-8195-1913
Format: article
Publication Date:2023
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repository:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/394762
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/394762
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20129
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Multivariate analysis
Numerical analysis
Forecasting methods
Bike demand forecasting
Bike sharing systems
Anàlisi multivariable
Anàlisi numèrica
Classificació AMS::62 Statistics::62H Multivariate analysis
Classificació AMS::65 Numerical analysis::65Y Computer aspects of numerical algorithms
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Matemàtiques i estadística::Estadística matemàtica::Anàlisi multivariant
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Matemàtiques i estadística::Anàlisi numèrica::Mètodes numèrics
Description
Summary:Public Bicycle Sharing Systems have spread in many cities for the last decade. The need of analysis tools to predict the behavior or estimate balancing needs has fostered a wide set of approaches that consider many variables. Often, these approaches use a single scenario to evaluate their algorithms, and little is known about the applicability of such algorithms in cities of different sizes. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of widely known prediction algorithms for three sized scenarios: a small system, with around 20 docking stations, a medium-sized one, with 400+ docking stations, and a large one, with more than 1500 stations. The results show that Prophet and Random Forest are the prediction algorithms with more consistent results, and that small systems often have not enough data for the algorithms to perform a solid work.