Personal e-scooter ownership and use: Perspectives from New Zealand

Abstract

In common with much of the world, e-scooters have emerged onto the urban landscape in New Zealand, promising both a practical and greener form of personal mobility. While focus has primarily been around managing shared e-scooter services, relatively liberal e-scooter legislation has encouraged the purchase of personal/private e-scooters, which are not regulated at the point of sale, exacerbating concerns around how to safely accommodate this emerging mode. In turn, this highlights the need for better understanding of personal e-scooter users, about which relatively little is known. Drawing from a survey of 252 current and former e-scooter owners in New Zealand, this paper provides estimates of e-scooter ownership, explores motivations for purchasing e-scooters, who is buying them, what consumers are looking for, how they are being used and implications for shared e-scooter schemes. Results suggest around 60% of personal e-scooters are capable of travelling about the maximum ‘safe’ e-scooter speed limit in New Zealand of 25 kph. E-scooter owners are more likely be male, middle-aged, middle/higher income, employed and have tried a shared e-scooter scheme prior to purchase and be motivated by the flexibility, performance, and potential cost-savings. The growing number of shared e-scooter services is evidently providing a pathway to purchase, a complementary mode and potentially a factor in people selling their e-scooter. Going forward, safely accommodating, and regulating e-scooter usage without compromising the intrinsic appeal of this emerging mode of transport is essential, if it is to play a meaningful role in moving us towards more sustainable mobility systems.