Micromobility

Use micromobility for short-distance trips. Cycling and other micromobility devices are the cleanest ways to move within a city and positively impact health, air quality, road safety, and greenhouse gas emissions. If you currently use a car for short trips, consider switching to micromobility if your city infrastructure and body allow it. You can even buy a secondhand bike or use a shared bike system. As an intermediate step, you can also consider an e-scooter with a lower vehicle per-mile emission than a car.

Use micromobility safely. Refer to your city guidelines for which paths and roads you can use your micromobility device on. Operate within speed limits and slow down when sharing space with pedestrians. If you are using a shared micromobility vehicle, make sure to return devices to designated drop-off locations and docks to ensure a longer lifespan for the device.

Keep sidewalks and bike lanes clear. If you live or work around sidewalks and bike lanes that are intended for micromobility devices, ensure that there are no roadblocks (e.g., trash bins, personal belongings, etc.) that would prevent access for riders.

Join or form a cycling action network. Action networks are a great way to meet other concerned citizens and promote cycling as a key mode of renewable transport in your city. Take inspiration from New Zealand’s CAN, which has advocated for a better cycling environment by influencing legislation in the country.

Speak up. Write an op-ed to a newspaper or post on social media about using micromobility in your city.

Flexible Work Schedules. Allowing for flexible work schedules can support employees in using active mobility and micromobility to commute to work. Employees are more likely to make the switch to micromobility if they can travel during off-peak hours to avoid car traffic, can commute during daylight hours, and can have some wiggle room in planning their trip duration, as micromobility travel planning may be less precise than public transit.

Install showers and bike lockers. Encourage your employees to use active mobility to work by providing them access to shower and storage facilities. This workplace cycle facilities fact sheet offers a quick guide to assessing your organization’s needs.

Support parking cash-out programs. Under parking cash-out programs, employers give employees a cash bonus to those who do not drive to work. For example, Seattle Children’s Hospital offered each employee a four-dollar bonus every day they didn’t drive to work, and as a result, 9 percent of hospital workers biked to work, almost double the city average.

Commit to being a fossil-fuel-free-streets city. Join more than thirty mayors around the world who have committed to transforming their cities toward fossil-free mobility by 2030. See C40 Cities' Green & Healthy Streets declaration. 

Invest in micromobility infrastructure.

• Expand protected bike lanes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, several cities around the world have been opening up temporary bike lanes in response to an increase in cyclists. Even as other modes of transport become safe to use, planners can reclaim road space from cars by creating protected bike lanes next to sidewalks and ensuring an integrated network of bike lanes throughout the city.
• Create dedicated micromobility networks. Rather than adding micromobility lanes as an add-on to existing roads built for cars, some cities take a more proactive approach to micromobility infrastructure by creating dedicated micromobility networks. The Dutch “Hoofdnetten” is one such example, in which most cities in the Netherlands have dedicated streets for micromobility that are not shared with any other vehicles. The priority given to micromobility makes it a safer and more inclusive form of mobility and increases ridership.
• Install public lockers and showers. Provide infrastructure that supports the use of micromobility vehicles, such as public lockers for wearables (helmets, safety vests, etc.), vehicle stands to lock devices to, and a network of showers to support active micromobility options in high-commute zones.
• Implement equity mandates and incentives. The benefits of micromobility are not always distributed equally by companies that rent out devices such as scooters or bicycles based on a subscription service. Communities of color and low-income communities are often excluded from access to micromobility services due to language barriers, technology barriers, or living in transit deserts. You can implement equity-based policies to improve access to micromobility services in your city. For example, in Zapopan (Mexico), policies have been implemented that require companies to distribute vehicles throughout the operating zone evenly and encourage payment methods for unbanked users or those without mobile data plans. In Minneapolis (U.S.) at least 30 percent of the operator’s fleet of scooters and bicycles must be distributed in designated underserved areas, with no more than 40 percent of the fleet placed in downtown or wealthy neighborhoods.
• Build micromobility elevated freeways. Micromobility highways prioritize the safety and convenience of micromobility users. In Denmark, cycle superhighways provide a safe and continuous lane to encourage users to use micromobility options for trips as long as three miles or five kilometers. By building micromobility highways, officials can offer a cheaper, safer, and healthier alternative to people are currently using cars for short-medium distance trips within the city.

Integrate micromobility with mass transit. To encourage passengers to use micromobility for the last mile of their journeys, planners can integrate infrastructure such as micro-vehicle and bicycle stands by train and bus stations. Additionally, planners can provide clear guidelines on the dimensions of microvehicles that can be carried on public transit to ease last-mile connectivity planning for users. See Urban Mobility.

Invest in public infrastructure. Vehicle-sharing companies can do their part in expanding the city's cycling infrastructure, making micromobility a more appealing mode of transport.

Provide live data on vehicle availability. Ensure data from docking stations or from geotagged vehicles is available to users in order for them to make informed decisions about their transit choices. Users are likely to make the switch if vehicles are regularly available within walking distance.

Design and provide different vehicles. Micromobility vehicles are often designed with an optimal user in mind. This imagined user is often an able-bodied adult male. As a company, you can design vehicles for a range of bodies and abilities. Islabikes in the UK, for example, designs bikes specifically for children and riders aged sixty-five years or over. Similarly, vehicles that serve more than single users can support women or other primary care providers who are making trips to the grocery store or picking up their children from schools and daycare.

Use differentiated pricing strategies. Companies like Bird and Lime already offer discounted rides to low-income users to make micromobility more accessible to underserved neighborhoods. Companies can raise additional revenues for these subsidized trips through on-vehicle advertising revenue. A similar pricing strategy could be used to incentivize particular times or routes to further increase accessibility for certain populations.

Use renewable energy to charge any electric vehicles. Ensure each electric-powered vehicle in your fleet is charged using renewable energy sources. You can influence citywide policies on shifting to renewable energy grids in the long run. In the short run, several companies are using solar-powered docks to charge their fleets.

Repair and recycle damaged vehicles. Studies show that the environmental impacts of micromobility such as e-scooters are mostly associated with the materials and manufacturing processes. By ensuring that vehicles in your fleet are repaired when broken, and repurposed or recycled responsibly once the vehicle can no longer be repaired, you can extend the life span of your vehicle and reduce pollution impacts.

Reselling older generation vehicles. Companies like TIER have committed to giving e-scooters of an older generation a second life by making them available for ownership. Consider company policies that redistribute older yet functional models of micromobility vehicles to communities with the least public transit access in the city.

Install more docking stations. Studies have shown that reducing vehicle collection and distribution distances can help reduce the negative environmental impact of dockless micromobility vehicles. By shifting toward a docked vehicle business model, companies are likely to extend the life cycle of their vehicles and simultaneously reduce vehicle life-cycle emissions.

Incentivize active mobility. Several apps have incentivized users toward active mobility by rewarding users in cash, discounts, or even charitable donations.

How to Build a City Around Bikes, Fast by Bloomberg Originals (10 mins.)

The Bike Lanes You Can't See - Ontvlechten by Not Just Bikes (8 mins.)

All Bodies on Bikes by #RideShimano (13 mins.)

The Micromobility Policy Atlas by the Shared-Use Micromobility Center

How Dockless Bike Sharing Changes Lives: An Analysis of Chinese Cities by the World Resources Institute

Low-Speed Zone Guide by the World Resources Institute

The Micromobility + Ride Review Newsletter

"Electric Scooters and Micro-Mobility: Everything You Need to Know" by Adeyemi Ajao / Forbes

“Make E-Scooters Work with Transit, Not Against It” by Ziang 'Jacob' Yan / Greater Greater Washington

"Micromobility Needs a Shared Vocabulary" by Leila Hawa, Annie Chang, and John MacArthur / The City Fix

"Cities Need to Rethink Micromobility to Ensure It Works for All" by Remington Tonar and Ellis Talton / Forbes

The Evolution of Bike Sharing: 10 Questions on the Emergence of New Technologies, Opportunities, and Risks by the World Resources Institute

Demand-driven design of bicycle infrastructure networks for improved urban bikeability by Steinacker et al. / Nature Computational Science

"Forward-thinking Utrecht builds car-free district for 12,000 people" Daniel Boffey / The Guardian

"Cycling Copenhagen: The Making of a Bike-Friendly City" by Marianne Weinreich / Heinrich Boll Stiftung

"E-scooter fees help fund protected bike lanes in downtown Miami" by Jason Plautz / Smart Cities Drive