Bikes and buses are two green transport solutions in the city. Finding how they interact is key to improving both.

Public transport network

The public transport network consists of bus and metro lines operated by STM. The network has an average daily ridership of 2,524,500 passengers : 1,403,700 by bus, 1,111,700 by metro and 9,200 by alternative services.

How is the network spread out ?

Bus Network

When looking at the map of bus lines we can see that the network is well spread out.

Metro Network

The metro network is less spread out than the bus network. It is foucused around the city center. If we overlay a heatmap of the bike stations and metrolines we find that they are clearly linked. Why is that ?

The most obvious answer is that the bikes are situated in the most dense zones. We can check this here. Another explanation was found by interviewing canadians. We heard that the bus system was quite unreliable and that you had to wait for long times if using the bus. They told us that by using bikes you could avoid the buses and use the metro system directly. Does the data show this ? Let’s look at the most popular bike paths overlayed with the metro lines :

Clearly people use bixi-bikes in conjunction with the metro. This behaviour may be further explained by the average wait time at a station. People wait on average 14 minutes at a station (source). Taking a bixi bike to go directly to metro station where the wait times are lower saves time.

Conclusion

It seems that only the metro matters for bike use. Buses do not seem to be used in conjunction with bikes. The way to increase bike use through public transport is through metro lines. Scales are to be reminded however. Bixi bikes do less than 100000 trips per day while metros more than 1 million. Bikes should be remebered while planning new lines but should not be a priority.