Health Impact Assessment of Urban Public Bicycle System: A Case Study of Taipei Youbike

• Main Authors: Syun-Yan Liao, 廖洵顏
• Other Authors: 張學孔
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/5pq4u6

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 土木工程學研究所 === 106 === In responding to environmental and social challenges of climate change and global warming, countries around the world have proposed many sustainable development programs in the hope of achieving the goal of sustainable transportation and low carbon mobility. Public bike system is an important implementation for countries to pursue sustainable development and reduce air pollution and carbon emissions. How to measure the benefits derived from riding bikes is one of crucial tasks in development of public bike systems and cycling friendly environment. This study aims to establish an assessment model of health impact for urban public bike by reviewing the health benefits and potential risks of cyclists on their riding activities. These benefits and risks include health benefits from regular physical activities, health risks from exposure to air pollution and the influence of road safety risks caused by the number of cyclists and cycling environment. The study used relative risk of all caused mortality and traffic accidental injury rate as indicators in the model. With the assessment model, the study collected the required data and calibriated model parameters’ values from Taipei City and Youbike system, which is the public bike system in Taipei. The study used the rental data of Youbike to assess the health economic benefit of those who regularly used the public bike system in Taipei. The results show that although the number of traffic accidental injury increases as user change their modes from their original modes to public bike system, the health benefits from regular physical activities is far more than the risks from the increasing of the number of injury and exposure to air pollution. The results of case study have shown that health benefit for these regular cyclists is 116 million NT dollars (USD3.87 mi) per year. To achieve greater health economic benefits, it is suggested that we should increase the number of regular cyclists of the public bike system and their intensity. In addition, it is necessary to reduce road safety risk by enhancing the cycling friendly environment and increasing more exclusive bike tracks and network. The developed model can be applied to other cities for evaluation of health benefits of public bike system.