Exploring the Influence of Parking Penalties on Bike-Sharing System with Willingness Constraints: A Case Study of Beijing, China

Dockless bike-sharing has experienced explosive growth, establishing itself as an integral component of urban public transport systems. Challenges such as parking violations have spurred operators and users to pursue standardized management. While electronic parking spots are employed to promote standard parking, suboptimal parking layouts can lead to illegal parking. Inadequate post-violation penalties fail to achieve standard parking, while excessive punishment diminishes user engagement. This study combines parking spot density and penalties to incentivize standard parking, and Beijing, China, was selected as the research object. Using an SP questionnaire survey, a binary logistic model analyzes bike-sharing users’ standard parking behavior and willingness to adhere to different rules. Findings reveal that optimal walking distances range from 300 to 450 m for service levels and exceed 400 m for service efficiency. Influential factors include gender, age, occupation, usage behavior, and travel preferences. Users with high-frequency, low-convenience expectations, low travel costs, and flexible travel exhibit strong adherence. Additionally, user acceptance of the maximum distances without penalties follows an exponential distribution, with 80% accepting 400 m and 40% accepting 800 m. Enforcement has a visible effect within 300 m, but diminishes with longer distances. Excessive penalties result in significant user loss.