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How cities are shaping up for the micromobility challenge

Matt Writtle
Matt Writtle

If you’ve had your eyes open around the city lately, chances are you’ll have noticed two-wheeled scooters, brightly coloured bicycles and electric bikes (e-bikes), whisking people around, or parked on pavements.

These are all part of a phenomenon known as micromobility, which barely existed two years ago. Now, billions in investor funds float across the globe annually in the hopes of one day reaping returns on the next big thing in urban transport.

While shared dockless electric scooters (e-scooters) and e-bikes are currently the face of micromobility, carrying millions of short urban trips globally each year, the term can refer to any small vehicle weighing less than 500kg (1.1lb), with a single user, which generally travels slower than 16mph. Micromobility may be human-powered or powered electrically, a personal vehicle or communal (shared). It could be a scooter or a bike, a hoverboard or a skateboard.

With an increasingly urban global population in the midst of an air pollution crisis, and a pressing need to change how we move around our cities for short trips, could micromobility be the answer to transport in the 21st century?

It is certainly popular. According to the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) in the US, communal e-bikes and e-scooters (collectively, ‘shared mobility’), made 84 million trips in 2018 — double that of the previous year. E-scooters, which appeared in 2017, made up 45.8 per cent, or 36.5 million, of those trips, and are now close to replacing shared bike trips altogether. In Portland, Oregon, 35 per cent of e-scooter trips would have otherwise been taken with private cars, and many people used taxis less thanks to these scooters, suggesting a huge opportunity to replace cars. And it’s not just in the States. In Tel Aviv, half of city residents have tried an e-scooter. In Europe too, you can find them in action everywhere from Copenhagen to Berlin, Barcelona and Brussels; in Paris alone, there are more than 15,000 e-scooters.

NACTO’s Nicole Payne says: “[Whether they are a success] still remains to be seen but some cities have seen great success in developing shared micromobility that gets people out of cars — people love it. They are using the vehicles for short trips to get where they need to go. They are fun — that’s part of the attraction — and they’re convenient: being able to determine where you drop off your vehicle has been a selling point for people. As long as they are parked correctly, it’s definitely a plus. It gets you closer to transit, it really makes the connections easier.”

Embracing this new form of transport, however, continues to be a steep learning curve. When dockless e-bikes and e-scooters first appeared on city streets in 2017, sometimes in their hundreds, cities like San Francisco banned e-scooters, while others confiscated dockless e-bikes branding them ‘littering’. Most shared micromobility providers now work in partnership with cities — but regulation still struggles to keep up.

In the UK, for example e-scooters are illegal outside private land. Police can warn people they see riding them on the streets, seize scooters, fine users and even give riders points on their driving licence. While Bird e-scooters are legally available to hire in London’s Olympic Park, the Government is still deciding how to legislate for their wider use.

Richard Corbett, general manager of Bird UK, says: “As one of the most polluted and congested cities in Europe, we would love to be able to operate more broadly across London.

“The average car trip in the city is less than two miles long, has an average speed of just over 6mph and is usually a single-occupancy trip. We’re hopeful that at some stage the UK will follow the rest of Europe and allow scooters, but we don’t have an indication when that might happen.”

Yet e-scooter regulation in Europe is far from uniform and in fact, varies considerably. In Italy, for instance, e-scooters can be driven at 6kph (3.7mph) in pedestrian zones and 20kph on roads, but aren’t permitted at night or in heavy rain. By comparison in Germany, they can be driven at 20kph on cycle paths or carriageways, while in Belgium they take on the same laws as cycling and have a speed limit of 25kph.

As with cars, parking and user behaviour are also issue requiring control. Paris has, for instance, had to introduce fines for riding e-scooters on pavements, or blocking doorways or pavements.

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Clearly, getting the legislation right is key, and this may come down to infrastructure. As Payne points out: “In cities that do have cycling infrastructure people feel comfortable in the bike lane. Cities that don’t have that infrastructure, folks are riding on the sidewalk, which isn’t great. There’s more of a regulation challenge in cities that don’t have infrastructure.”

It’s a different story for e-bikes however, which users ride by pedalling to activate the motor. These are largely restricted to 15.5mph and generally treated like regular bikes across Europe: permitted to use roads, cycle routes and shared paths. E-bikes have already proven themselves popular, especially in the UK where research indicates e-bikes could serve up to one in four UK commutes. In London e-bikes and e-bike hire is certainly flourishing. And both Lime e-bikes and Uber’s new Jump e-bike are available to riders through apps.

Fred Jones, head of New Mobility at Uber said: “Over time, it’s our goal to help people replace their car with their phone by offering a range of mobility options — whether cars, bikes or public transport — all in the​ Uber app. We have already introduced electric JUMP bikes in Islington and Camden with more to follow in the months ahead.”

The question remains: can​ micromobility help solve our toxic air emergency to become the eco-friendly transport of the future?

A spokesperson for Lime, the e-bike/e-scooter rental company, said: “With sensible regulation, shared e-scooters, like those offered by Lime in more than 40 European cities, offer a sustainable and convenient way of travelling which can replace vehicle journeys and don’t result in emissions that pollute our air or arm our health.”

Jones adds: “The evidence shows when e-bikes are available, overall cycling rates go up, helping the city achieve its active and sustainable travel targets.”

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