Are shared electric scooters energy efficient?

Developing sustainable transportation systems has become a common goal across the world. Shared electric scooter (e-scooter) is becoming the rising star in fulfilling this purpose since its debut in 2017, partially due to the obvious advantage that e-scooters are using clean energy. However, are e-scooters energy efficient? To answer this question, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, collected a large dataset regarding the operations and battery performance of e-scooters from a major provider in Gothenburg, the second-largest city in Sweden.

 

They published their study on November 29, 2021, in Communications in Transportation Research.

 

“We develop a multiple logarithmic regression model to examine the energy consumption of single trips and influencing factors. Additionally, we use a Monte Carlo simulation framework to estimate the fleet energy consumption in various scenarios, taking into account both trip-related energy usage and energy loss in idle status”, says Jiaming Wu, a researcher at the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology.

 

Different spatiotemporal trip patterns between weekends and weekdays

In the study, the research group observed significantly different spatiotemporal patterns between weekdays and weekends. For example, the e-scooter usage is intensive during 7 am ~ 9 am and 4 pm ~5 pm on weekdays, corresponding to the normal commuting hours. On the weekend, a large portion of trips occurred in the afternoon between 1 pm~7 pm without visible peaks.

 

“This contradicts the results of studies conducted in U.S. cities, which found that the shared e-scooters were not often used for commuting. This reminds us that e-scooter usage can differ from case to case, and general conclusion cannot be drawn yet.” Yuxuan Wang, a Ph.D. candidate majoring in transport system modeling, says.

 

Areas with a high density of trips were mainly distributed in the prosperous commercial regions and transportation hubs. The result indicates that e-scooters could be a competitive transport mode against walking and cycling in the urban transportation system. The electric scooter might also be a potential feeder mode for public transport.

 

Significant energy wasted in idle status

The Monte Carlo simulation indicated that the energy loss in idle status is considerable, which accounts for 32.8% on weekdays and 41.9% on weekends, respectively. The research also investigated the impacts of the average usage frequency of e-scooters on fleet energy consumption through an extensive number of experiments. The results showed that around 50% of energy would be wasted in the idle status if the average use frequency of each e-scooter is about 0.6 times per day.

 

“The results call for extra attention before flooding the street with e-scooters as companies did years ago with shared bikes. We hope this research could lay a foundation for better operations and regulation developments of e-scooters”, Jiaming Wu explains.

 

The above research is published in Communications in Transportation Research (COMMTR), which is a fully open access journal co-published by Tsinghua University Press and Elsevier. COMMTR publishes peer-reviewed high-quality research representing important advances of significance to emerging transport systems. COMMTR is also among the first transportation journals to make the Replication Package mandatory to facilitate researchers, practitioners, and the general public in understanding and advancing existing knowledge. At its discretion, Tsinghua University Press will pay the open access fee for all published papers from 2021 to 2025.

 

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About Communications in Transportation Research

 

Communications in Transportation Research publishes peer-reviewed high-quality research representing important advances of significance to emerging transport systems. The mission is to provide fair, fast, and expert peer review to authors and insightful theories, impactful advances, and interesting discoveries to readers. We welcome submissions of significant and general topics, of inter-disciplinary nature (transport, civil, control, artificial intelligence, social science, psychological science, medical services, etc.), of complex and inter-related system of systems, of strong evidence of data strength, of visionary analysis and forecasts towards the way forward, and of potentially implementable and utilizable policies/practices. Communications in Transportation Research is a fully open access journal. It is co-published by Tsinghua University Press and Elsevier, and sponsored by the State Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy (Tsinghua University). At its discretion, Tsinghua University Press will pay the open access fee for all published papers from 2021 to 2025.

 

About SciOpen

 

SciOpen is a professional open access resource for discovery of scientific and technical content published by the Tsinghua University Press and its publishing partners, providing the scholarly publishing community with innovative technology and market-leading capabilities. SciOpen provides end-to-end services across manuscript submission, peer review, content hosting, analytics, and identity management and expert advice to ensure each journal’s development by offering a range of options across all functions as Journal Layout, Production Services, Editorial Services, Marketing and Promotions, Online Functionality, etc. By digitalizing the publishing process, SciOpen widens the reach, deepens the impact, and accelerates the exchange of ideas.

 

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