e-Scooters: Who Rides Them, Potential Benefits, Regulatory Concerns, and Business Considerations
With less effort to drive than an e-bike, e-scooters have lots of potential benefits, but regulators are being kept on their toes
When travelling around the city in the summer, your Ride On writers have seen increasingly more e-scooters being driven. It seems fun, fast, and in some cases a practical means of transport, especially if one is tight on time. They are also needed because a person can easily travel with one on the train if desired, so it may be a good solution to getting home or to work fairly quickly in a cheap sustainable way. With that in mind, we want to devote today’s issue of Ride On to the e-scooters.
Given that motivation, it is necessary to explain clearly what is an e-scooter and how it is obtained for usage. In that respect, Trivedi et al. (2019) defines an e-scooter thusly:
With a maximum speed of 15 mph, these short-range electric vehicles consist of a narrow platform on which the rider stands with 1 foot in front of the other and a waist-high rod with handlebars for steering; after kicking off initially with 1 foot, riders accelerate and brake the scooter using triggers activated with their thumbs.
Furthermore, one pays for an e-scooter by the minute via a smartphone application — a smartphone is also used to locate it, and riders end their ride any time, anywhere.
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