Ripples through the city: Understanding the processes set in motion through embedding a public bike sharing scheme in a city

This paper seeks to elucidate the nature of the processes or ‘ripple effects’ associated with embedding a public bike sharing scheme (PBSS) into the physical, social and institutional fabric of a city. It draws on a case study of the dublinbikes scheme and was guided by the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) conceptual framework. The study employed a mixed method data collection approach encompassing interviews with key informants and users (and non-users) of the PBSS and analyses of statutory plans, policy documents, engineering guidance and other material. Through an examination of a number of domains — rules and regulations, user experiences of navigating the city, the emergence of new actors and re-alignments of existing relationships, infrastructures and traffic management measures — it is revealed that the introduction of the PBSS set in motion an array of unpredicted processes and cascade effects (or feedback loops in complex systems terms) which are now playing out. The knowledge generated from this study of the planning and early operational phases of the new socio-technical system enhances our understandings of processes of change associated with PBSSs and, more broadly, of some potential transition pathways towards lower carbon futures. The paper also raises new questions for future research.