Every day, thousands of people travel around Portland using shared mobility options such as e-scooters and BIKETOWN, the city's beloved bike share system known for its orange bikes. Today, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is excited to announce it is launching a new Open Data Portal in partnership with the Portland-based tech company Ride Report to provide academics, advocates, and everyday people more insights into how e-scooters and BIKETOWN are used around the city.
Through this first-of-its-kind collaboration, PBOT and Ride Report’s Open Data Portal shows the level of BIKETOWN and e-scooter use on an interactive map. To protect the privacy of the traveling public, no information about individual rides is provided. The number of rides for each street segment in the city are shown on a quarterly basis.
The portal can be used to gather data to help answer questions such as:
- How have service area expansions and a shift to e-bikes impacted BIKETOWN usage?
- What has been the impact of Covid-19 on e-scooter use?
"With good data, we can make good decisions," Portland Transportation Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty said. "I'm so glad to see PBOT working with a local company to bring more transparency to our transportation system. I believe this dashboard will help provide activists, community members and city staff with the information they need to help continue Portland's efforts to reduce carbon emissions and make transportation more accessible to everyone."
"My original inspiration for founding Ride Report was wanting to support the critical work that advocates do in transforming our streets," said William Henderson, chief executive officer of Ride Report. "It has been wonderful to see how deeply PBOT shares our vision of using data to inspire trust, accountability and better decision making in our community. To all my colleagues in advocacy: I can’t wait to see where you all will go with the Open Data Portal!"
Try it now: See PBOT's new Open Data Portal
Trip data are displayed, including:
- Routes heatmap that shows the most popular street segments used for shared mobility trips
- Median Trip Distance
- Median Trip Duration
- Trips per day (average)
- Total Trips
- Total Trip Distance
Aside from exploring these metrics on e-scooters and BIKETOWN usage, the Open Data Portal will also allow visitors to download information for deeper analysis. The Open Data Portal also overlays High Crash Network data, Portland’s bike network and multi-use paths with shared mobility data. PBOT hopes the launch of this innovative data tool will create additional engagement around BIKETOWN and e-scooters, offer improved access to data for researchers and the public, and provide useful information that could be considered during transportation planning projects.
How have service area expansions and a shift to e-bikes impacted BIKETOWN use?
In September 2020, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) and Lyft expanded BIKETOWN’s service area to 32 square miles. This included its first expansion into East Portland, and encompassed the Jade District and portions of Lents, Powellhurst-Gilbert and Gateway. A new fleet of 1,500 pedal-assist electric bikes complemented the growing service area.
With these new e-bikes and expansion, ridership has greatly increased in East Portland. Since September 2020, the highest ridership BIKETOWN stations in East Portland have been at the Orchards of 82nd, SE 92nd and Foster in Lents Town Center, and SE Foster and 72nd at the Portland Mercado. Focusing on the latter, one can see the ridership increase substantially through routes data (pictured below) of the Bureau of Transportation’s new Open Data Portal. In partnership with our data analytics consultant, Ride Report, this new tool can be used by the public in a myriad of ways to view, analyze, and compare the Bureau’s BIKETOWN and e-scooters data.
Portland Mercado Q3 2020:
Portland Mercado Q3 2021:
What has been the impact of Covid-19 on E-scooters use?
In March 2020, the U.S. and Portland entered an unprecedented global pandemic. Portland saw dramatic drop-offs in transit ridership brought on by stay-at-home orders, and Trimet was forced to cut service. Portlanders needed access to transportation for critical trips, and e-scooters provided an outdoor, healthy transportation option as other options became more limited. Thus, one can see below that e-scooters have evolved into a bigger transportation asset in 2021 as the world slowly recovers from the pandemic.
Through use of routes data of PBOT's new Open Data Portal, one can compare e-scooters and BIKETOWN trips and other relevant shared mobility data in different quarterly intervals. In partnership with our data analytics consultant, Ride Report, this new tool can be used by the public in numerous manners to view, analyze, and compare the Bureau’s BIKETOWN and e-scooters data. The focus here on NE 122nd Ave and E Burnside St is because it is next to a Blue Line MAX stop on E Burnside, a high trip generator for East Portland, and one of PBOT’s current projects is the 122nd Avenue Plan. Based on the route data images below, one can see how e-scooters ridership has grown exponentially since 2019 on this same stretch of 122nd Avenue even amidst a global pandemic. This higher usage demonstrates that safe and comfortable bicycle infrastructure will be needed to ensure further accessibility for East Portlanders in the coming years.
Thus, the 122nd Avenue Plan is a comprehensive plan intending to improve safety, access, and transit along 122nd Avenue between SE Foster Road to the south and NE Marine Drive to the north. Furthermore, PBOT’s planners could potentially use this new data tool as another asset in their decision-making process for creating and implementing safer and better bicycle infrastructure.
E-scooter use: 122nd Avenue and East Burnside Q2 2019
E-scooter use: 122nd Avenue and East Burnside Q2 2020
E-scooter use: 122nd Avenue and East Burnside Q2 2021
PBOT's new Open Data Portal shows millions of trips using shared mobility devices (all figures through Dec. 15, 2021)
E-scooters
- E-scooters Trips (Since April 2019) = 2,051,000 trips
E-scooters Trips (Year 2018) = 700,369 trips - E-scooters Total Trip Distance (Since April 2019) = 2,812,619 miles
E-scooters Total Trip Distance (Year 2018) = 801,887 miles
BIKETOWN
- BIKETOWN Trips (Since September 2020) = 367,000 trips
BIKETOWN Trips (July 2016 – September 2020) = 1,292,378 trips - BIKETOWN Total Trip Distance (Since September 2020) = 791,690 miles
BIKETOWN Total Trip Distance (July 2016 – September 2020) = 2,629,842 miles
All Shared Mobility
- Total Trips (Since April 2019) = 2,418,000 trips
Total Trip Distance (Since April 2019) = 3,604,310 miles
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The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is the steward of the city’s transportation system and a community partner in shaping a livable city. We plan, build, manage, and maintain an effective and safe transportation system that provides access and mobility. Learn more at portland.gov/transportation