Determination of the Applicability of Free-Floating Bike Sharing (FFBS) in Manila as Response to Transportation Issues Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Limited transportation capacity and availability of PUVs are encountered daily in cities such as Manila due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Public bike-sharing like FFBS may ease these transport problems, although it is not known whether Manila is bike-friendly enough to accommodate the transport scheme. The study aims to investigate Manila through certain factors to determine the applicability of FFBS in the city. Field data collection on existing bikeways and potential bike parking, a survey on commuters in the city, and document review on legal documents was done to get an in-depth analysis regarding bike facilities, government involvement, user behavior, and expected demand for FFBS in Manila. Findings show that LOS of investigated roads and bikeways were mostly between B to C (VCR of 0.20–0.69) and at B (ave. bike speed of 15–22 kph) respectively, suitable bike parking exists along at least one side of the investigated roads, the government enabled bikeways to be set up and more are expected in the future, there is high probability of positive user behavior towards dockless bikes (Likert Scale mean above 4.0), and most of the response (75%) regarding demand leans towards agreeing to avail FFBS services. FFBS was concluded to be an applicable transport scheme in Manila. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.