Diffusion of Bike Sharing as an Innovation Vector in the City: The Case of BiciMAD (Madrid)

Bike sharing nowadays is a must-have element of the urban transport system that is changing mobility patterns in cities worldwide. BiciMAD, a fleet of bicycles with electric pedal-assistance (pedelecs)—introduced in the center of Madrid (Spain) in 2014—is an example of the latest generation. In this article, Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) is adapted and applied as a framework to study data from a series of surveys among BiciMAD subscribers to describe adopter profiles and analyze attributes that influence the time of adoption, including an additional one: cycling familiarity. Empirical results are presented to show how an innovation (in terms of technology and service configuration on the level of a city) is dispersed. Conclusions show that smart bike sharing is an innovation vector in urban mobility, an attractive new travel mode for the identified adopter categories, namely (1) lifestyle cyclists, the venturesome and technology enthusiast Earliest Adopters, (2) dedicated cyclists, the rational and deliberate Early Majority, (3) leisure cyclists, the skeptical and peer-dependent Late Majority, and (4) fair-weather cyclists, the prudent Laggards.