GOVERNANCE & INTEGRATION
Micromobility
(MICRO) MOBILITY OF THE FUTURE
E-scooters have a great potential in shaping cities for people, reducing air and noise pollution, and breaking traffic gridlock across Europe – however, questions about equity and accessibility along with many other topics are still in citizens’ and decision-makers’ minds. Karen Vancluysen spoke with Voi Technology’s Nathan Ashley to get some answers
1. E-scooters are the new kid on the block, and they also want to play their part in making cities less car-centric. But are e-scooters really replacing car trips, or are they rather getting pedestrians on an e-scooter and cyclists away from their bike?
Nathan Ashley (NA): We have seen in our user surveys, with more than 20,000 respondents across Europe that e-scooters do in fact replace car trips. On average, 15% of our e-scooters trips replace car journeys, and in some cities, it’s far higher. For instance, the average car replacement rate in the UK is 39%. With that said, I think it is also important to think of the benefits of shared micromobility from a more systemic perspective. Integrating shared micromobility as part of the public transport network can contribute to increased uptake of public transport, and fewer cars in cities along with increased walking and cycling. Perhaps what is more interesting is how shared micromobility can impact car ownership, rather than the mobility choice for the last trip, which is the common question asked in the modal shift surveys we see today. In fact, a 2020 survey from the Norwegian Institute of Transport Economics showed that 2% of the surveyed e-scooter users confirmed that they got rid of their cars due to the use of e-scooters, and another 8% had considered doing the same.
Nathan Ashley is Senior Public Policy Manager UK, Ireland & Benelux for Voi Technology
We believe that cities need to be adapted to fundamentally change urban mobility and reverse the car-dependent societies of the 20th century. Car replacement is not a static thing, but it will grow as social norms and infrastructure adapt. However, the rapid increase in access to shared micromobility in European cities, along with the exponential growth in usage, are much-needed factors contributing to this transition to sustainable urban mobility.
2. The typical e-scooter user often turns out to be a male young urbanite. Do you try to reach out to other target groups with Voi, and is there even a scenario where more vulnerable groups of society could make use of your services?
NA: Making micromobility as inclusive and accessible as possible for all is at the heart of what Voi does. Ensuring everyone’s needs are taken into account in the design and development of our products and services is key. Together with 6t, a mobility-research oriented firm, we sought to find out what is needed to make our service more inclusive. In that roadmap we identified three key steps:
FIRST STEP
The first is to ensure ‘access to all’. This can be done through spatial accessibility, economic accessibility and improved access to opportunities. For example, in Cambridge in the UK, we expanded our service to seven times the original operating area meaning we are now able to bring a safe, sustainable service to parts of the city which are underserved by public transport.
Making micromobility as inclusive and accessible as possible for all is at the heart of what Voi does © Christina Spinnen on Unsplash
SECOND STEP
The second is offering a ‘tailored service’. This can only be done by understanding users’ specific needs, developing users’ capabilities and adapting commercial offers. We are working in close collaboration with Women in Transport and as part of this collaboration, we have commissioned a research project to better understand the gender disparity in e-scooter usage. We expect to publish the findings in spring 2022. However, from what we can see, especially in the UK, the gender distribution of Voi users is 60% male, 40% female, this is based on our summer survey data. Our ambition is to increase female ridership to 50% by 2025 and we believe that this can only be done by co-designing our service with women and other users and non-users.
Earlier this year, Voi has partnered with Open Inclusion to improve usability and accessibility for everyone © Voi Technology
THIRD STEP
The last step toward creating an inclusive and accessible service is ‘meaningful involvement'. By empowering grassroots organisations, setting up inclusive advisory and performance monitoring committees we can start to create a service that allows other users to engage in democratising micromobility. Earlier this year we worked with Open Inclusion, a pan-disability and age-inclusive accessibility consultancy and held a number of focus groups that involved people with disabilities, older people and parents with toddlers or babies. The feedback was that micromobility can be useful for all groups and this level of engagement will allow Voi to better understand diverse community perspectives and how to design, test and integrate different types of mobility such as the Klaxon Klick into our service offer.
3. A trend that has been accelerated by COVID-19 is to foster proximity and shape the 15-Minute City. What role can micromobility play in such a city?
COVID-19 has accelerated the need for 15-Minute Cities, where micromobility can play a vital role © Christina Spinnen on Unsplash
NA: Generally speaking, micromobility is essential for more liveable and sustainable cities. Car dependent mobility needs to be reversed in cities, and space that today is occupied by cars needs to be redistributed to give more space for sustainable transport options such as walking, biking, e-scooting and public transport. Shared mobility provides flexibility and the option to choose the kind of mobility mode that is most efficient for the specific distance, reason, and season. For example, electric cars may still be needed for certain trips outside of the city centres, but the question remains if urban dwellers need to own their own cars.
We believe that shared micromobility is an essential element in shaping 15-Minute cities. The true impact is unlocked when micromobility services become integrated into public transport networks. The shared micromobility provides a new mobility mode that elevates the accessibility and extends the capillaries of the buses, trains and trams that is the backbone of public transport networks. The environmental footprint of shared e-scooters has decreased significantly in the past years. For example, the average carbon footprint of a Voi trip in Stockholm – taking the full lifecycle emissions into account – is lower than the direct emissions per passenger kilometre from an average bus trip in Stockholm before COVID. This is not to say that e-scooters are better than buses, but to highlight that e-scooters can play a role in extending public transport networks.
4. If we look beyond our urban cores, we see that suburban areas often are more car-dependent and have fewer sustainable alternatives in place. Is there a lot of untapped potential for micromobility in suburbia?
NA: Making micromobility available in suburban areas and towns is important to improve intermodality with public transport. Take the UK e-scooter trials as an example. The timing of the Government announcement and the need to relieve pressure on public transport during the pandemic was a key objective of launching shared e-scooters in the UK. The challenge for governments and transport providers, local and national, will be to fend off a car-led recovery. Voi is engaging with a number of cities to explore how our service can help drive multi-modality and provide a feeder service, for example, to suburban railway stations and mobility hubs, and integration into regional ticketing systems. Connecting people and places in a sustainable way will be key to unlocking new user groups. To do that, it will be important to go beyond the archetypical rider that will require collaboration between a number of sectors. This is a great opportunity to leverage and demonstrate the value of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and multimodal travel, an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.
Making micromobility available in suburban areas and towns is important to improve intermodality with public transport © Christina Spinnen on Unsplash
Voi Technology
Launched in August 2018, Voi is a Swedish micromobility company offering electric scooter sharing in partnership with cities and local communities around Europe.
Read more here
Nathan Ashley is Head of Strategic Policy - Equity & Safety for Voi Technology
Karen Vancluysen is Secretary General of POLIS Network.
You can contact them, respectively, at: nathan.ashley@voi.com and kvancluysen@polisnetwork.eu