Dockless electric scooters: A review of a growing micromobility mode

Abstract

Electric Micromobility (EM) and the use of dockless shared electric scooters (DSES) has rapidly grown in many cities worldwide. They are promoted as an accessible, low-emissions, versatile, and low-effort alternative. This article conducts a systematic review of DSES, considering their evolution, operation, regulations, user profile, environmental impact, safety, and pricing. The review shows age, income, and gender gaps among their users as most of them are young, male, high-income adults. DSES adopters come mainly from public transport, walking, and cycling. Their environmentally friendly label needs to be analyzed according to the city's context; their distribution and collection logistics impacts, and the vehicle's service life. The review shows significant differences in the way cities have regulated the service. One of the most significant potential contributions from DSES to urban mobility is the possibility to be integrated with public transport, implementing the Mobility-as-a-Service concept.

Keywords:

• Micromobility
• dockless scooters
• e-Scooters review
• shared mobility
• electric micromobility
• smart mobility

Disclosure statement

The authors reported no potential conflict of interest.

Notes

1 Whose objective is to provide a standardized way for municipalities or other regulatory agencies to collect ingest, compare and analyze data from mobility service providers focused on dockless e-scooters, bicycles, mopeds and carshare.

2 Image created by the authors using Inkscape software

3 OECD series correspond to constant prices USD exchange rates.

Additional information

Funding

The Universidad Militar Nueva Granada funded this article through research grant number INV-ING-3187.