Wireless sensor network based management system for electric bicycle-sharing

Bicycle-sharing is an exciting new model of public-private transport provision that has quickly emerged in the past five years, and represents a possible way for enhancing sustainable mobility in smart cities of the future. This paper proposes a wireless sensor network based management system for electric bicycle-sharing of new design, where each bicycle and docking station is equipped with a measurement and communication device (i.e., a network mote), and is both sensor and actor of the wireless network. Each bicycle can keep track of its position, battery level, and communicate with the docking station, which manages the recharge cycle, and locks or releases the bicycle to the user. Since all the information is shared through the network, the management system can provide high level software services as well (e.g., the booking service). This paper describes in detail the design and the implementation of the proposed wireless sensor network based management system for electric bicycle-sharing.