## 3 Methodology and Data Source  
In order to verify the above hypothesis and achieve the main goal of the article, the transport behavior of MEVO municipal bike system users was analyzed. The analysis was conducted based on the method of individual, direct interviews with the use of an original questionnaire. The interviews were conducted at the turn of August and September 2019 (i.e., in the months when the weather in Poland does not hinder the use of bicycles to meet transport needs and also pre-COVID-19). The survey sample included 500 respondents. Before the survey was taken, there had been a pilotage of the questionnaire, which included 12 local experts discussing the questionnaire. The experts included 6 researchers, 2 bike activists, and 4 employees of the town halls specializing in the public transport domain. The questionnaire consisted of 18 questions, including one screening question. The given screening question allowed for the omission of respondents who did not live in the area served by the MEVO system (e.g., tourists). The pool of the final respondents included the municipal bike system's actual users who left or rented municipal bikes at one of six stations located in the three main cities (Gdynia, Gdansk, and Sopot) where the MEVO municipal bike system subject to analysis was operational. The stations where the survey was conducted included six stations which were all relatively close to public station stops (bus, trolley, or municipal rail):  
- Galeria Baltycka (station No. 11365);  
- Olivia Business Centre (station No. 11358);  
- Gdynia Glowna (station No. 12000);  
- Gdynia City Museum (station No. 12053);  
- Skwer Kuracyiny Sopot (station No. 10100);  
- Bohaterow Monte Cassino (station No. 10124). It should be emphasized that MEVO functioned as a point-area system (i.e., the return of the bicycle can take place at the station but also by leaving the bike anywhere in the designated area after paying an additional fee). The stations surveyed were selected so that their operational scope covered some of the main traffic generators located within the area covered by the MEVO system of various specificity (e.g., traffic generators related to work, recreation, or shopping). Thereby, the survey covered people who used the municipal bike system to differentiate the goals (meeting the transport needs related to diversified destinations). According to the data of the system operator, these stations were the most popular stations of the MEVO system in individual cities [57]. It should also be noted that an equal number of interviews were conducted at each station. Upon conducting the survey, the MEVO system comprised 1224 bicycles equipped with electric power-assisted steering. Ultimately, the system was supposed to include 4080 electric bicycles, which would make it the largest bike-sharing system of this type in Poland and Europe [58]. The lack of experience in the exploitation of electric bikesby the system operator (Nextbike, the European bike-sharing market leader) resulted in the suspension of the whole system after seven months of operation. A particularly big problem for the system operator was the charging of the batteries in the bicycles and the redistribution of the charged vehicles. Despite the attempts made, the system was not brought back into operation due to an ongoing legal dispute. Table 1 presents the most important characteristics of the survey sample. The respondents comprised a similar number of women and men. The gender parity with slightly more women among the MEVO municipal bike users complied with the gender structure of the inhabitants of Poland and was similar to the parity among cyclists in the European conditions [59]. The majority of respondents had a driver's license and a passenger car in their household. Therefore, they could make a decision to fulfil their transport needs by municipal bike, urban transport, the passenger car they owned, or a car rented based on the car-sharing system.