Implementing micromobility services: a multi-perspective assessment of the introduction of e-scooter sharing in Germany

Abstract

The introduction of e-scooter sharing systems is posing challenges for cities and transportation planners (Caspi, Smart & Noland, 2020). As a reaction to the partially uncontrolled and rather uncontrolled market entry of micromobility services in the United States, several cities banned e-scooter sharing systems, as a form micromobility (City of Santa Monica, 2019; San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, 2019). In the first days, cities often lacked an appropriate regulatory framework (James et al., 2019) and cities around the globe experimented with local strategies. Due to the recent market entry of micromobility services, detailed information regarding the introduction of these systems is still lacking and a comparison of different strategies is not yet available. If mobility services are to contribute to a sustainable transformation of the transport system, they need to represent a feasible or an acceptable alternative to the private car. Against this background, we address the following research questions: • How can micromobility services be implemented in cities to become an element of an integrated sustainable transport system? • What are suitable conditions and use cases? We will present the empirical findings from in-depth interviews with experts in the area of electric scooter sharing in six German cities. A total of 21 experts from seven domains were selected: transportation authorities, public transport providers, e-scooter sharing providers, municipalities and policy, other mobility service providers, associations and planning offices and consultation companies. We found that in Germany, standard procedures for implementing and managing mobility services have not been established yet. So far, most cities react under pressure to emerging requests from mobility providers, rather than proactively shaping and steering the introduction. Potentials of new services and synergies with regard to political goals such as climate protection or traffic reduction are thus hardly used. Further, although cities deal with similar challenges in this respect every city seems to go their own way given the locally differing conditions and requirements for mobility services. In addition to efficiency issues, this is also a problem in terms of outcome. Due to a lack of human resources in most municipalities, there is a lack of time and competence to handle the requests from private providers themselves, so that often no adequate management can take place. In our contribution, we will give insights into the these and other findings with respect to our research questions. We will also discuss implications for action.