Abstract 

The Citi Bike network has been expanding and ridership has increased over the years. With flexible plans for both subscribed members and one-time customers, it will be interesting to study the difference in travel habits between the two groups. While it is expected that subscribed members are likely to use Citi Bikes more frequently across the week than customers, it is interesting to note that when ridership is presented in proportions, a different pattern is observed. The proportion of one-time customers using Citi Bike is highest on weekends, with ridership proportion exceeding that of subscribers. 

Introduction

Citi Bike is the bicycle sharing system of New York City open to visitors, tourists and locals alike. For non-subscribers, a daily pass will cost $12, whereas for subscribers, a monthly pass cost only $14.95. Given the way the pricing system is set up, the idea is that the number of non-subscribers (customers) using Citi Bike is likely to be significantly less than subscribers who have committed to a monthly or annual pass. However, it will be interesting to understand the travel patterns of customers and subscribers, by looking at Citi Bike usage by these two groups during the weekdays and weekends. This will allow us to better understand how different user types use Citi Bikes across the week. Therefore, this paper aims to test the hypothesis that the ratio of customers riding over the weekend to weekday is the same or less than the ratio of subscribers riding on weekends over weekday, at the significance level of 0.05.