Designing Bike-Sharing Networks for Urban Mobility: A Case Study of Morocco

Bike-Sharing Systems (BSS) are increasingly viewed as a sustainable and flexible component of urban mobility, particularly in rapidly growing cities such as Casablanca. The effectiveness of such systems depends, critically, on strategic planning decisions, most notably the number and location of stations. This study proposes a spatially explicit modeling framework to support the design of a BSS network based on urban demand characteristics. Ten categories of urban attractors are identified and grouped into four main criteria: socioeconomic activities; education, culture, and health; leisure spaces; and public mobility hubs. A modified Huff model is used to estimate the spatial distribution of potential demand and to identify candidate locations for bike-sharing stations. Walking accessibility is represented by shortest-path distances on the pedestrian network. Building on these demand estimates, the station deployment problem is formulated as a minimum set covering location problem whose objective is to determine the smallest number of stations required to cover a predefined proportion of total mobility demand within a 1000 m walking-network distance. Coverage is constrained separately for each arrondissement, while stations located near administrative boundaries may serve demand in neighboring arrondissements. At the baseline γ=0.5, the model selects 45, 70, and 154 stations for coverage targets of 60%, 80%, and 100%, respectively. The proposed approach provides a systematic and data-driven basis for BSS planning and helps integrate bike sharing into a more efficient, environmentally sustainable, and multimodal urban mobility system in Casablanca.