Elektro-Scooter im Straßenverkehr : Konfliktanalyse von E-Scootern am Fallbeispiel Wien

Abstract

Since summer 2018, electric scooters have been on the streets of many cities worldwide, including Vienna. The rapid growth of the sharing market for these trending vehicles has already led to numerous negative headlines. The lack of legal foundations and precise behavioral regulations for sharing providers and users contributed to this. In the meantime, many of these gaps have already been closed for Vienna and all of Austria, driving with e-scooters has been clearly regulated by law. However, the influence of this new vehicle class on road safety remains a highly relevant issue. To gain insights into the impact of e-scooters on road safety, in addition to an analysis of the legal and technical framework, this thesis provides the results of a survey that was conducted between September and November 2019 among 169 people, both e-scooter users and non-users. In the course of this survey, the participants were asked about observed or experienced traffic conflicts with e-scooters as well as a number of other traffic safety-related aspects in connection with these new vehicles. To gain more insights into conflicts with e-scooters, observations of e-scooter drivers were carried out in selected observation spaces in Vienna. On the one hand, observations were conducted at fixed, spatially delimited locations, and on the other hand, tracking observations were carried out in larger spatial areas.The results of all these investigations show that traffic conflicts occur most frequently where the traffic area is shared with cyclists or pedestrians. However, the type of road users who were involved in the conflicts alongside the e-scooter drivers, varied greatly according to the respective traffic area. Whereas in “Begegnungszonen“ and “Fußgängerzonen” more conflicts occurred with pedestrians, on bike paths more conflicts with cyclists were observed. In most cases the persons responsible for triggering these conflicts were male e-scooter drivers. Carelessness, excessive speed and aggressive driving behavior were the most common misconducts which led to the traffic conflicts. In addition, a traffic rule violation could be documented for every third e-scooter driver during the tracking observations. Recommendations for legislative, political and planning decision-makers as well as for sharing providers and users to increase the safety of e-scooters in road traffic complete this study.

Since summer 2018, electric scooters have been on the streets of many cities worldwide, including Vienna. The rapid growth of the sharing market for these trending vehicles has already led to numerous negative headlines. The lack of legal foundations and precise behavioral regulations for sharing providers and users contributed to this. In the meantime, many of these gaps have already been closed for Vienna and all of Austria, driving with e-scooters has been clearly regulated by law. However, the influence of this new vehicle class on road safety remains a highly relevant issue.To gain insights into the impact of e-scooters on road safety, in addition to an analysis of the legal and technical framework, this thesis provides the results of a survey that was conducted between September and November 2019 among 169 people, both e-scooter users and non-users.