E-scooter-sharing system
A scooter-sharing system or kicksharing system is a shared transport service in which electric motorized scooters are made available to use for short-term rentals. e-scooters are typically "dockless," meaning that they do not have a fixed home location and are dropped off and picked up from certain locations in the service area.
Scooter-sharing systems work towards providing the public with a fast and convenient mode of transport for last-mile mobility in urban areas. Due to the growing popularity of scooter-sharing, municipal governments have enforced regulations on e-scooters to increase rider and pedestrian safety while avoiding the accrual of visual pollution. Scooter-sharing systems are one of the least expensive and most popular micromobility options. A similar concept is an electric bicycle sharing system. Some cities and companies operate both types of systems.
Scooter-sharing industry
Rise of e-scooter industry
In 2012, Scoot Networks released a moped-style vehicle that provided a short-range rental of scooters. In 2016, Neuron Mobility introduced e-scooter docking stations in Singapore. In 2017, Bird Global and Lime introduced dockless electric kick scooters. Since its launch in Santa Monica, California, United States, Bird expanded its services to over 100 cities and reached a valuation of 2 billion dollars in 2018. In the same year, Lime amassed over 11.5 million rides. Early 2018 also saw India-based Yulu launching its IOT-enabled smart bicycles in Bengaluru, followed in 2019 by the launch of its shared electric vehicles. Lyft and Uber, the largest ride-sharing companies in the U.S., introduced their own electric scooter sharing services in 2018. In 2019, the global scooter market is expected to be valued at 300 billion to 500 billion dollars by 2030.Technology
Apps
To rent a dockless e-scooter, users download a smartphone application. The application shows users a map of nearby e-scooters and enables them to unlock them. The application also includes a secure payment gateway such as PayPal. Scooters are equipped with built-in GPS chips and cellular connectivity which allows them to report their location in real time during a trip. Through GPS and cellular tracking, companies can gather usage statistics, track which scooters are being used, and charge customers accordingly for the time spent per trip.Anti-theft
E-scooters have built-in features to prevent theft and hacking. Hackers are capable of replacing the existing hardware to convert the scooter for personal use, sometimes illegally. Users are only able to unlock and ride e-scooters by using a smartphone application; when a user has completed a trip, they use the app to lock the e-scooter and immobilize the wheels. Bird and Lime e-scooters have built-in alarms that will trigger if someone attempts to move or tamper with an e-scooter without using the app to unlock it. In response to the growing problem of scooter hacking, Lime claims it has developed custom scooter hardware that cannot be easily replaced with third-party parts.International expansion
Asia
The market for the Asian scooter-sharing industry is currently less than 4 percent of the North American market size. Singaporean ride-sharing startups, Grab and Neuron Mobility, were the first movers in the Southeast-Asian e-scooter sector. Grab is valued at 10 billion dollars and currently only provides e-scooters from a singular location in Singapore. In 2018, Uber secured 27.5 percent of Grab's equity to compete in the Southeast-Asian market. Neuron Mobility owns and operates the most expansive collection of e-scooters in Thailand and Singapore. Lime has selected Singapore as the headquarters for its operations in Asia and was the first foreign company permitted to provide e-scooters within the city. Starting in 2019, Bird and Lime have been working alongside Japanese traffic regulators and testing local markets to assess the viability of an expansion to Japan. In 2022, Beam, a Singaporean startup which currently operates e-scooters and e-bikes in 35 cities raised $135 million of funding to expand.Europe
Estonian mobility technology company Bolt launched scooter-sharing services on its mobile app platform in 2019. It has since become the largest micromobility operator in Europe, with operations in more than 130 cities across 20 countries. At the end of 2021, Bolt become the first company to launch scooter charging docks in Europe. In April 2022, Bolt announced plans to invest 150 million euros to further expand its scooter offering, pledging to operate 230,000 scooters across Europe by the end of the year.Lime launched the first large-scale European expansion of scooter-sharing systems in Paris during June 2018. By October 2018, Lime's app became the top-ranked travel application on Apple's App Store in France. As of 2019, Lime provides scooter-sharing systems to more than 50 European cities including Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, Madrid, and Athens. Bird launched its own European market-development strategy in Paris in August 2018. Bird's coverage has expanded to more than 20 major European municipalities. Uber's Jump entered the European market in April 2019 through a test-launch in Madrid, Spain. Within a 7-month window, expanded the accessibility of their service from Madrid to 10 of Europe's most populated urban centers. European e-scooter start-ups, Voi Technology from Sweden and Tier Mobility out of Germany, accrued 80 million dollars and 28 million dollars of funding respectively. In 2020, Tier subsequently raised a further 250 million dollars, valuing the company at just under 1 billion dollars.
Since 2017 Amsterdam-based Felyx is active in the Netherlands and since 2019 in Brussels. From 2017 to 2018 the number of shared e-scooters in Europe increased by nearly 200 percent. The European demand for scooter-sharing systems is expected to grow 26.2 percent annually through 2025.
Since 2019, Turkey-based micro mobility platform, Scootable, provide services in 3 country and with more than 1500 scooters. In addition to scooters, the company also provides software infrastructure for many electric vehicles such as forklifts, street sweepers, cargo E-bikes, golf cart, scissor lifts, farm buggy, electric boats, baggage towing tractor.
Since 2018, kicksharing has appeared in Moscow, Russia. Currently available 42,000 scooters in 5 rental services. Scooters must be parked in special places. There are speed-restricted zones in the city - scooters automatically reduce speed to 5–15 km/h.
South America
Until 2019, Brazilian startup, Yellow was the largest e-scooter service in South America. The startup set the South American record for an initial fundraising round at 63 million dollars of investment. At the start of 2019, Yellow carried out a merger with the Mexican e-scooter service Grin to form the conglomerate Grow Mobility. Grow Mobility is the largest scooter-sharing service in South America with 100,000 e-scooters and plans to double this coverage by the end of 2019. Other competitors in the South American market include Colombian e-scooter start-up Cosmic Go, worldwide scooter rental company BikesBooking from Barcelona, and the multinational mobility service Movo headquartered in Spain.Effects
Right-of-way obstruction and visual pollution
is a major concern caused by scooter-sharing in cities due to users illegally parking e-scooters on sidewalks, entryways, roads, and access points. E-scooters that are incorrectly parked litter sidewalks and block pedestrian walkways. Riding e-scooters on the sidewalk is discouraged because it disturbs pedestrians and poses a safety risk at high speeds. The term "scooter rage" or "scooter war" describes a movement by displeased city residents to illegally dump e-scooters into waterways or bury them so that users are unable to find and rent them.Injuries, fatalities and safety
There is limited information on the overall scale of injuries caused by electric scooters. However, in a three-month study, 20 people were injured for every 100,000 rides. A close majority were head injuries, and of those cases, 15 percent were traumatic. Broken bones; ligament, tendon, or nerve impairments, severe bleeding; and organ damage are other injuries experienced by electric scooter riders. Non-riders have also been a victim to electronic scooter injuries through collisions or tripping on the devices in the streets. In the United States, 11 fatalities occurred between the start of 2018 to mid-2019.Common times of accidents occur during work and rush hours. 33 percent of all injuries occur on sidewalks and 55 percent occur on streets. Several accidents involved cars and obstacles on the ground, like curbs, poles, or manhole covers. Mechanical problems, such as failing brakes and wheels, and distracted riders were other contributing factors for accidents. Sixty percent of injured people reported to have reviewed the training created by the electric scooter companies before riding.
Only 4 percent of injured riders are reported to have worn helmets. Lime and Bird are redesigning the devices with sturdier brakes to help reduce the mechanical troubles of riding the scooters. The companies have also been working alongside cities to develop infrastructure, like bike lanes that will be safer for people to travel.