This Project highlights the gap in short-distance travel demand in American cities and introduces "shared micromobility" as solution for carless individuals. Urban planners face challenges in negotiating with private operators and addressing issues like overcrowded e-scooters. Establishing a balanced public-private partnership requires empirical evidence on scooter use and its local impact. Strategic planning should assess the societal impacts of micromobility investments, focusing on their connection to leisure facility visits.

Abstract

Shared micromobility programs, including dockless electric

scooter-share (E-scooter), are popular in many U.S. cities,

and with their adoption brings the hope that they may uphold

better car-free accessibility. However, few studies provide

clear answers to what activities drive its travel demand or

whether it could actually generate more visiting activities.

To fill this gap, we conducted a spatiotemporal similarity

analysis between E-scooter use visit patterns to leisure facilities.

We find that E-scooter use is significantly correlated with daily

dining and drinking, shopping, and recreational activities, in

that order. Moreover, we find higher scooter-visit correlation

clusters in downtown and university campus areas. We then

used the Difference-in-Differences approach to examine if E-

scooter use can generate more visiting activities. Surprisingly,

the results show that E-scooter use is insignificant to the overall

visit increase.

Shunhua Bai

Junfeng Jiao

Yefu Chen

Jiani Guo

Shunhua Bai: Formal analysis,

Investigation, Methodology.

Junfeng Jiao: Conceptualization,

Funding acquisition, Supervision.

Yefu Chen:

Jiani Guo:

Supplementary data to this article

can be found online at

https://doi.org/10.1016/-

j.trd.2021.102844.