The Electric Bicycle: Worldwide Research Trends

The bicycle has gone from being an old-fashioned recreational product to a less polluting means of transport and a compact, ultra-light personal mobility tool. This is how electrical bicycles will be used as the pillar that could support individual public transport in large cities worldwide. The obj...

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Main Authors: Esther Salmeron-Manzano, Francisco Manzano-Agugliaro
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2018-07-01
Series:Energies
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/7/1894
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spelling doaj-3625b31b60a94129825b3ff6779b085f2020-11-24T23:22:44ZengMDPI AGEnergies1996-10732018-07-01117189410.3390/en11071894en11071894The Electric Bicycle: Worldwide Research TrendsEsther Salmeron-Manzano0Francisco Manzano-Agugliaro1Faculty of Legal, Social and Human Sciences, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR), Av. de la Paz, 137, 26006 Logroño, SpainDepartment of Engineering, University of Almeria, ceiA3, 04120 Almeria, SpainThe bicycle has gone from being an old-fashioned recreational product to a less polluting means of transport and a compact, ultra-light personal mobility tool. This is how electrical bicycles will be used as the pillar that could support individual public transport in large cities worldwide. The objective of this manuscript is to detect how worldwide research on the electric bicycle is being developed, and, especially, around which scientific domains is it clustered, to finally identify the main trends in the field. This study has been carried out based on the Scopus database, where all the publications related to the topic of the electric bicycle have been analyzed up to the year 2017. ¨Therefore, research on the global research trends of this topic was conducted. Its evolution over time shows that since 2008 the growth of publications is much higher than in the previous period. The main countries are China and the USA, and it can be inferred that there are two major trend countries with high environmental awareness, which also have a large population and that the electric bicycle is a suitable and sustainable form of transport. Among the main scientific fields, engineering leads in research. The keyword analysis shows that the central theme is electric, then battery and motor stand out. A community detection was applied to detect the six main clusters of this research, largely dedicated to the following topics: Transportation–Environment, Electrical Engineering, Safety, Batteries, Sporting Goods–Urban Planning, and Mechanical Engineering. This manuscript shows that global research trends about the electric bicycle are increasing, and that it should be considered a means of sustainable urban transport and will therefore contribute to energy saving and sustainable energy.http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/7/1894batterieselectric bicycleelectric vehicleenergy savingtransportation
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Esther Salmeron-Manzano
Francisco Manzano-Agugliaro
spellingShingle Esther Salmeron-Manzano
Francisco Manzano-Agugliaro
The Electric Bicycle: Worldwide Research Trends
Energies
batteries
electric bicycle
electric vehicle
energy saving
transportation
author_facet Esther Salmeron-Manzano
Francisco Manzano-Agugliaro
author_sort Esther Salmeron-Manzano
title The Electric Bicycle: Worldwide Research Trends
title_short The Electric Bicycle: Worldwide Research Trends
title_full The Electric Bicycle: Worldwide Research Trends
title_fullStr The Electric Bicycle: Worldwide Research Trends
title_full_unstemmed The Electric Bicycle: Worldwide Research Trends
title_sort electric bicycle: worldwide research trends
publisher MDPI AG
series Energies
issn 1996-1073
publishDate 2018-07-01
description The bicycle has gone from being an old-fashioned recreational product to a less polluting means of transport and a compact, ultra-light personal mobility tool. This is how electrical bicycles will be used as the pillar that could support individual public transport in large cities worldwide. The objective of this manuscript is to detect how worldwide research on the electric bicycle is being developed, and, especially, around which scientific domains is it clustered, to finally identify the main trends in the field. This study has been carried out based on the Scopus database, where all the publications related to the topic of the electric bicycle have been analyzed up to the year 2017. ¨Therefore, research on the global research trends of this topic was conducted. Its evolution over time shows that since 2008 the growth of publications is much higher than in the previous period. The main countries are China and the USA, and it can be inferred that there are two major trend countries with high environmental awareness, which also have a large population and that the electric bicycle is a suitable and sustainable form of transport. Among the main scientific fields, engineering leads in research. The keyword analysis shows that the central theme is electric, then battery and motor stand out. A community detection was applied to detect the six main clusters of this research, largely dedicated to the following topics: Transportation–Environment, Electrical Engineering, Safety, Batteries, Sporting Goods–Urban Planning, and Mechanical Engineering. This manuscript shows that global research trends about the electric bicycle are increasing, and that it should be considered a means of sustainable urban transport and will therefore contribute to energy saving and sustainable energy.
topic batteries
electric bicycle
electric vehicle
energy saving
transportation
url http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/7/1894
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