When the sharing economy took off in the 2010s and upended entire industries, the model’s strongest proponents heralded it as an economic revolution this will help reduce emissions. Of all the ideas that have come and gone over the years, shareable electric scooters seemed to hold the most promise for climate. Almost anyone with a smartphone and a credit card can grab one and drive it around the block or around town, avoiding cars.
Yet, as the industry matures and Lime – which, with operations in 280 cities worldwide, is the biggest player – moves further into its eighth year, researchers have shown that the eco-friendly dreams of shared micromobility have not been realized without problems. The true climate benefits of these fleets depend on how companies deploy and manage them, and safety remains a concern as injuries increase. But industry leaders seem intent on ensuring their scooters are as sustainable and safe as possible.
“It’s really important as a company that has set a net zero target by 2030,” said Andrew Savage, Lime’s head of sustainability, “that we take the step, and that we do everything we can to inspire the industries around us to decarbonize as well.”
The sustainability of shared micromobility is an active area of research in a rapidly changing industry. Ultimately, researchers see two factors that determine the overall climate impact of e-scooters: how users ride them, and how operators manage them from manufacture to disposal.
A recent survey of the latest research question whether the sharing economy is inherently sustainable, which included a specific look at e-scooters. The survey found that many researchers repeatedly worry about the question, “If riders hadn’t rented a scooter, how would they have gotten to their destination?” If someone would have walked instead of driving, that person has increased the emissions associated with that trip. But various studiesincluding one by the Portland Bureau of Transportation and another, financed by Lime, by a German Research Institutefound that while anywhere from a third to more than half of scooter users would have walked instead, enough other trips that would have been taken by car were not and shared scooters, overall, help reduce overall transportation emissions – often 20 grams of CO2 emissions per mile driven on a scooter.
However, the picture in urban landscapes can become slightly more complicated when researchers consider how those who provide the scooters pick them up to charge, repair or redistribute them to where people are likely to use them. Colin Murphy, director of research and consultancy at the Shared Use Mobility Center said that when operators use large trucks to run their fleets, they can negate some of the emissions savings from users.
To address this, Savage said the company is improving its fleet logistics to reduce overall emissions. Lime’s scooters and bikes are now fitted with larger, swappable battery packs which mean they need to be charged less often and when they do, fleet workers can drive around with a trunk full of battery packs rather than taking the scooter back to a warehouse, effectively cutting logistics emissions in half while ensuring that scooters are available more often. Savage said the company also bought more than 140 electric vans to support these operations. While that’s 10 times the number Lime had a few years ago, that’s still only one van for every two cities it operates in.
Savage said Lime is also working to reduce its impact in other ways. For example, in North America, “once vehicles arrive at the port,” Savage said, “we now use emission-free trucks to get them to our distribution centers.” Furthermore, it has a modular bike design that makes it easier to exchange damaged parts, and parts that are beyond repair are often sent for recycling. And it has worked with one company, Gomi, to salvage cells from partially damaged batteries for use in what it says zero-waste bluetooth speakers.
But perhaps the most worrisome obstacle facing the industry is also the one over which it actually has the least direct control: rider safety. One study, released earlier this year by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles, found that from 2017 to 2020 serious injuries to scooter riders have tripled, just as revenue for the scooter-sharing industry shot from $10 million to nearly $450 million. This trend only continued in 2021 and 2022, with micromobility injuries averaging 23 percent every year. And it’s not just scratches and bruises. The UCLA-led study found that scooter users, compared to cyclists, were more likely to end up with a broken arm or leg, require surgery, or even become paralyzed. The researchers suspect that this may be due, among other things, to riders who often do not have safety equipment.
Kalk insists that it post safety first. But with most American cities designed to promote cars over all other forms of transportation, the health of scooter users, like that of pedestrians and cyclists, is at risk the moment wheels hit the pavement. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that of the 30 people who died while riding an e-scooter in 2018, 80 percent were hit by a car. That’s why, if society wants to move away from cars as the default, Kailai Wang, who studies urban mobility at the University of Houston, believes urban areas need to invest in upgraded infrastructure like protected bike lanes that can make roads safer for non-automobile transportation.
Of course, cars aren’t the only dangers that e-scooter users, such as cyclists, face. Bad road and pavement conditions may result in serious injury. And sometimes riders are their own enemy. According to some studies, first time riders and late night riders face increased risks. Murphy said these are two areas where scooter-sharing platforms and local policymakers can step in.
For example, he said, operators can artificially limit the maximum speed of a scooter during a user’s first few rides as they get used to the vehicle. In other cases, many cities ban e-scooter rides in the early hours of the morning to prevent abuse. But “to the extent that these vehicles provide a real kind of transportation lifeline for some people,” Murphy said, “that’s almost when they’re at their most important.” For someone finishing a late shift after bus services have ended, an e-scooter may actually be their best, or only, way to get home. This reality has led the Chicago City Council for example consider revision his own late-night ban.
As long as people have access to one of these vehicles when they need one, and a safe lane to drive in it, shared micromobility can help cities move away from car-dependent transportation, reducing emissions in the process, by transporting something too material and energy-intensive to move to something low-impact and electric.
