Samira Dibaj

As urban mobility systems are undergoing transformations, there is a global trend of increasing diversity of battery-electric micromobility vehicles (EMVs). Such emerging unconventional vehicles include among others fat-tire e-scooters and electric unicycles. Despite this ongoing emergence, the current research has a notable gap in studying this phenomenon. With that gap in mind, this exploratory study investigates the growing presence of EMVs in Helsinki, Finland. Using 64 hours of observational video data collected from four key urban locations in 2021, this is the first study of the real-world usage of these emerging mobility technologies. The findings reveal a measurable presence of EMVs on city streets, contrasting with the dominant focus on standard e-scooters and e-bikes in most of recent research. In addition to quantifying the prevalence of EMVs relative to mainstream micromobility options, the study characterizes the types of vehicles observed, user demographics, and riding behaviors. While EMVs remain less common than conventional electric vehicles, their adoption in Helsinki is already significant. Riders tend to be highly skilled, with distinct patterns between delivery workers and general users. Initial insights suggest that EMV usage is driven by both recreational and practical motives. As an initial investigation, the study highlights the urgent need for further research into the emergence of novel and intermediary vehicles in urban mobility systems worldwide.

The emergence of micromobility services in the form of dockless shared e-scooters has resulted in a wide range of behavioral changes in urban environments. In order to effectively steer these changes towards sustainability targets, the characteristics of e-scooter trips and users’ behaviors should be understood further. However, there is a lack of systematic literature reviews in this domain. To address this gap, we provide a two-fold systematic literature review. The first aspect focuses on the categorization of temporal and spatial patterns of shared e-scooter usage. The second aspect focuses on a deeper understanding of e-scooter users’ behaviors, utilizing the principles of persona design. The analysis of temporal patterns highlights the commonality of midday, evening, and weekend peak usage across cities, while spatial patterns suggest e-scooters are used for traveling to recreational and educational land use, as well as city center areas. The synthesis of findings on users’ behaviors has resulted in six categories, with four user types based on usage frequency (one time, casual, power, and non-adopters), and two motivation-based personas (users who are not satisfied with current mobility options and users who have had positive travel experience from e-scooter usage). The overall findings provide important lessons for evaluating this emerging mobility service, which should be considered for steering its development in public-private stakeholder networks.