E-Scooters innner city Vienna - deployment prospects and environmental impact

Abstract

E-Scooters are everywhere nowadays. They seem to be well accepted by general population and are quickly gaining popularity among all ages and social classes. Lightweight, compact, easy to use, they appear to be one of the best tool for promoting the micro-mobility and environmental sustainability. On the other hand, there are many both apparent and concealed risks, limitations, and controversies associated with E-Scooters. They present a safety hazard for their own users as well as other traffic participants, mainly pedestrians. Their contribution to well-being of users is questionable, for they seem to augment the most common disease of today - sedentary lifestyle. By depriving individuals of physical activity, e.g. walking the “first and last miles”, E-Scooters have potential of causing serious implications for peoples health. Their practicality in winter season is uncertain. Their environmental impact is also currently unclear. Their actual CO2 footprint is not clearly defined and is often overlooked. Short shelf and operational life, toxic batteries, poor traceability, are all factors that should be taken into consideration and are often not. The explosion of E-Scooters seems to have caught authorities and regulators off guard. But they are rapidly starting to address the issue by creating and enforcing E-Scooter rules. No doubt that E-Scooters will survive. The question is how extensive their participation in total traffic will be after restrictions are introduced. This Masters Thesis clarifies the future of E-Scooters in Vienna`s micro-mobility scheme and focuses on E-Scooters potential to reduce motorized individual traffic (MIT) in the inner part of Vienna. It goes on to determine how many cars could be replaced by E-Scooters and quantifies the impact on emission of CO2 and air pollutants.