What We Are Reading
In a previous article, we noted that almost 70 percent of respondents in our Mobility Ownership Consumer Survey, conducted by the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility in July 2021, stated they would use micromobility for their daily commute. Of these, 12 percent said that they would use e-kickscooters as their preferred vehicle type. Since commuting represents a large proportion of daily micromobility use, we decided to focus on such trips for e-kickscooters in this article and analyze the preferred ownership types.
MRP™ views:
The sustainability credentials of shared e Scooters are much better than single ownership of an e Scooter. This is because sharing e Scooters aligns with the circular economy, compared to a linear ownership model of a vehicle. One hypothesis MRP™ proposes is that the current licensing caps on shared e Scooters globally reduces the efficiency of securing a shared vehicle for commuters. In the absence of greater numbers of shared e Scooters, those accustomed to the fun and ease of eScooter transport will be forced to purchase their own to get their daily fix of fun. This may account for the limited numbers of shared e Scooters compared to private ones, equally in limited studies in this domain. In the UK, for example, it is estimated that in the UK there were 380,000 private e Scooters compared to 20,000 shared e Scooters in the last year. In South Korea, it appears an estimated 200,000 Private Mobility vehicles were purchased in 2019.
Since the first shared e-kickscooter operations launched in 2019, Germany has been at the forefront of micromobility offerings in Europe. In 2021, the market’s six largest global operators maintained a fleet of nearly 120,000 e-kickscooters in the country during the peak summer season, making nearly 70 million trips that year despite the impact of the pandemic. This implies that, on average, almost 90 percent of Germans made one shared e-kickscooter trip in 2021.
Read MoreIn 2021, micromobility players attracted approximately $2.9 billion in new investment, and they may exceed this level in 2022. But the capital flows are now coming from different types of investors, and they are going to regions and vehicle types different from those of the past.
MRP views:
As McKinsey notes in this report, it is likely that the rising interest for micromobility is due to the accelerated efforts in Europe to build safe infrastructure. This is something MRP™ is noting equally. The level of uptake of micromobility appears to be causally linked to the availability of safe pathways, while the appreciation of the sustainability aspects of MM appears to be substantial.
A significant shift in the current transport paradigm is needed to provide sustainable and healthy ways of traveling and to help prevent ill-health. Within this context, transport authorities with local accountability are responsible for defining measures to reduce motorized vehicle fleets and congestion in cities.
MRP views:
This is a significant breakthrough in researching the positive impact from MM on improving air quality related mortalities and reducing transport accidents. The paper finds that MM Mode shift from passive transport modes provides health and environmental benefits. The reduction in fatalities is significant when shifting from cars and buses, but moves in the other direction when trips are switched from walking and biking. This is contrary to MRP research conclusions from analysing MM Operator accident data in comparison to bikes and motorbikes in ANZ. This is likely because bikes are significantly more risky in terms of fatalities and serious injuries, based on the numbers for ANZ so far. A significant factor may be due to the lack of biking infrastructure in ANZ, which is highly likely to have a negative impact on active transport safety.
E-scooters, e-bikes, and other forms of micro-mobility have the potential to cut the congestion, emissions, and noise pollution that plague our cities. It also represents a real tangible solution to the first- and last-mile transportation gap.
MRP™ views:
The World Economic Forum, based on a BCG study, makes some observations on the use and adoption of e Scooters and micro-mobility globally. It reconfirms the potential for MM to address FM/LM issues, and debunks the notion that MM is largely used for leisure and fun experimentation. However, the proposition that e Scooter trips switched from PT render e Scooters “at best neutral”. This is an unfortunate conclusion. Based on LCA results prepared by the MRP™, e Scooters have a four times lower GHG emissions profile than buses in Australia and New Zealand. This is due to the fuel used for buses Down Under and the low occupancy on buses. So a conclusion such as this needs to be carefully limited, as it depends on the location where the comparisons are made.