## 5 Discussion and Conclusions  
The analysis presented in the article provides several important implications and conclusions that can be used when planning the implementation of similar electric bike-sharing systems in other metropolitan areas. The survey presented in the article showed that the MEVO municipal electric bike scheme constituted the substitutable form of transportation against collective urban transport to a larger extent than against passenger cars. This means that the operation of a MEVO scheme only limited the use of passenger cars in the city residents' daily trips within the scheme's operational area to a small extent. Consequently, a small degree of car travel was substituted with municipal bike travel, meaning that the MEVO system contributed to a small extent to reducing the external costs generated as a result of fulfilling the city residents' transport needs, therefore contributing only to a small extent to improving the sustainability of cities where the system operated. Moreover, the survey presented in the article proves that the MEVO municipal electric bike system constituted a substitutable form of transportation against walking to a larger extent than against passenger cars. Therefore, as a result of using electric bikes, the system contributed to the increase in external costs of the transport system. Additional costs arose mainly from the need to charge batteries used in the bikes and the redistribution of bikes between stations (with the use of conventional vehicles). The above results mean that the effects of the implementation of the MEVO system met the expectations of policymakers to a very limited extent. This shows that despite the significant advantages that electric bikes have over conventional bikes, this study did not prove that electric bikes could replace more private car trips than conventional bikes. This is particularly important given the significant differences between the cost of implementing and maintaining traditional and electric bike-sharing systems. These differences were so significant that they contributed to the temporary suspension of the MEVO system's operation. The findings of the study partially confirm research being carried out in the already existing body of literature on the subject. More specifically, the results are in line with the results obtained in previous similar studies regarding the strength and direction of substitution between bike-sharing systems and public transport as well as personal cars [2,69,70]. However, there are also studies that show the opposite result, specifically that there is a high or even total rate of substitution of car trips by bike-sharing systems. These studies have been mostly carried out within countries with an already strong culture of active commuting (e.g., Sweden), and the results of our study might be partially contradictory due to general social and cultural factors [71,72]. Moreover, the factors affecting the residents' willingness to substitute car travel with municipal bike travel were analyzed, too. It turned out that the factors increasing the probability to swap the car for a municipal electric bike included gender (women were more willing to abandon car travel), young age, living in a multi-person household (which potentially may adversely affect the possibility to use a passenger car), and living within a small distance (less than 3 km) from the place of work or study. Taking into account all the results mentioned above, it should be noted that 6 months passed since the launch of the MEVO system when the survey was conducted. Due to the organizational difficulties on the part of the system operator, slightly more than 1200 bikes were used on a regular basis out of the scheduled 4080 municipal electric bikes. This means that the system did not reach its full capacity, which would contribute to the increased availability of bikes and consequently to the increased reliability of this mode of transport perceived by the city residents in urban travel within the system's operational area.