Shared micromobility: use, prospects, and public reaction
Creators: name: Caspi, Or
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2021

description: My dissertation is composed of three analytical chapters that explore the newly introduced e-scooter and e-bike sharing services. After a decade of the rising popularity of bikesharing, micromobility sharing expanded with dockless vehicles, electric engines, smartphone-based service experience, and aggressive marketing strategies. Hordes of vehicles are flooding cities worldwide, and the popularity of micromobility is growing, alongside worrying voices and criticism. My dissertation studies the micromobility sharing phenomena from three different aspects. It examines whether these services benefit society and provides a starting point for understanding their place in urban mobility systems.In the first chapter, I examine dockless e-scooter and e-bike sharing usage patterns in Austin, Texas, and compare them with the city's bikeshare. I spatially analyzed micromobility trip logs with respect to the built environment and sociodemographics. I used various spatial regression models and random forest models to examine the influence of different factors on micromobility trips. Results show that micromobility usage in Austin increased due to the introduction of dockless micromobility sharing services, while bikesharing usage did not decrease. Shared e-scooters and e-bikes are mainly used in regions served by bikesharing and increase micromobility usage outside these regions. E-bikes are apparently mainly used for commuting, while e-scooters and bicycles are used for short utilitarian trips. My findings suggest that micromobility modes cover all trip purposes, serving residents’ various activity needs.In the second chapter, I examine the influence of the added e-bikes on Philadelphia's bikeshare on usage in disadvantaged neighborhoods in the city. Indego, Philadelphia's bikeshare, embraced the promotion of equity as part of its primary goals. While previous measures were not adequate for that cause, Indego decided to integrate e-bikes into its system to promote usage among current non-users. In my analysis, I combined official publicly available data using spatial analysis methods. Furthermore, I used random forest and spatial negative binomial regression to examine factors influencing shared bicycle and e-bike usage in Philadelphia. The findings show that e-bikes increase the overall usage of Indego, specifically in disadvantaged areas. In these regions, the users use shared e-bikes for both commute and other utilitarian purposes, while in the rest of the city, users use e-bikes mainly for commuting. While in the first few months, the ridership in disadvantaged areas was similar to the usage elsewhere, the usage in those areas later declined. I concluded that the integration of e-bikes was successful in increasing bikesharing usage in disadvantaged areas in the short term.In the third chapter, I examined the positions reporters take on shared e-scooters in mass media and illustrated temporal and geographical trends in news coverage across the USA. Ever since the introduction of e-scooters in September 2017, news articles voiced their criticism and support for e-scooters, alongside simply reporting about the new phenomena. I examined three years of news articles from 10 large metropolitans and national newspapers. I used sentiment analysis to determine each article's stand toward e-scooter sharing – positive or negative – and mapped the common themes the articles discussed. My findings show that mass media was not overwhelmingly supportive of or against e-scooters. Negative coverage grew with time but lessened in the early months of 2020. News articles discussed e-scooter regulation, safety issues, and the conflict with other road users more than any other topics. In conclusion, my study shows that mass media developed to accept and normalize the operation of e-scooters with time.