How Barriers and Motivators can Affect Mashhad Citizens Usage of Bicycle Sharing System: A Qualitative Approach

The purpose of the present study is to identify the motivators and the barriers of using Mashhad’s Bicycle Sharing System. Bicycle sharing systems (BSS) are carried out in different ways, so each system has its own specific features and conditions. The authors of this paper have used a qualitative approach with a thematic analysis method for an in-depth analysis of the motivators and barriers of Mashhad’s BSS. In this respect, the semi-structured interviews were conducted with three groups of bike users, non-users, and experts. The number of the participants was 12, 18 and 8 individuals for each group, respectively. In choosing the user and non-user participants, different districts and occupations have been kept in mind. Also, in the interviews with experts and managers, Snowball Sampling has been adopted. After reaching theoretical saturation, the factors have been categorized into 7 different groups of themes, including “cultural”, “environmental”, “economical”, “policy-making and planning”, “functional”, “infrastructure”, and “comfort”. The results show that among non-users, the complicated sign up process, lack of access to docking stations, and lack of awareness about the program are the most important barriers of using Mashhad’s BSS. For users, program inefficiency and limited service hours were identified as the key barriers and environmental and health benefits as the motivators. Finally, specialists and managers have pointed to factors such as policy-making, raising awareness, cultural education, improving infrastructure, more funding and modern planning to encourage the general public to use the BSS system.