Safe Micromobility: Joint ITF Corporate Partnership Board and SaferCity Streets Network Workshop

New forms of micromobility services are being deployed across the world using sometimes novel forms of vehicles, like electric kick-scooters, mono-wheel hoverboards, electric skateboards alongside well-known vehicles like shared and electric bicycles. The safety performance of these new classes of vehicles and the services that employ them are unknown, especially at the scale at which these are being deployed in many cities.

Many questions regarding the safety of light mobility devices centre on their speed, handling characteristics, their use in pedestrian or mixed traffic space, and the experience of those using these devices. More fundamentally, the safety of these devices depend on how well infrastructure is designed and allocated for their use and how much authorities seek to reduce conflicts with larger and faster vehicles. Answers to these safety-related questions shoud be integrated into the policy framework authorities develop and deploy around new mobility.

This workshop brings together road safety experts and the transport industry, but is also open to delegates from the ITF Safer City Streets network, the global network for traffic safety experts working in cities. It builds on a dialogue between the industry and public authorities, aiming to better assess and improve the safety of micromobility devices and services.

The workshop assesses the safety of some of the new vehicle types that have emerged recently – especially electric kick-scooters. Keeping in mind, however, that many other yet-unknown vehicle types and business models may be deployed in the future, the meeting  also discusses if and how our safety-assessment frameworks must be adapted and made more proactive. What should form the basis for the categorisation of micromobility and light mobility devices? Should these be regulated on a device-specific basis or on a more general physical characterisatics like mass, power and handling? Do consumer product standards for these devices align fully with road-worthiness requirements set by transport authorities? How should user skills be addressed? Whilst the workshop will focus on electric kick-scooters, it  also lays out the principles for the safety management of similar vehicles. The aim of the project is to frame policy recommendations to best deliver desired safety outcomes for all micromobility services.

Workshop participants discuss how safe electric kick-scooters are, in comparison to other forms of transport, reviewing some of the rare pieces of field research available and also discuss how methods will have to change for the collection of police crash data and hospital injury data to keep up with recent mobility trends and with the possible arrival of new kinds of micro-vehicles.

The workshop also addresses the collection and use of data, including from electric kick-scooter sharing operators. This discussion  covers data reporting formats and proportionality of data reporting requirements (both to specific safety risks and to the requirements imposed on other modes).

New forms of micromobility services are being deployed across the world using sometimes novel forms of vehicles, like electric kick-scooters, mono-wheel hoverboards, electric skateboards alongside well-known vehicles like shared and electric bicycles. The safety performance of these new classes of vehicles and the services that employ them are unknown, especially at the scale at which these are being deployed in many cities.

Many questions regarding the safety of light mobility devices centre on their speed, handling characteristics, their use in pedestrian or mixed traffic space, and the experience of those using these devices. More fundamentally, the safety of these devices depend on how well infrastructure is designed and allocated for their use and how much authorities seek to reduce conflicts with larger and faster vehicles. Answers to these safety-related questions shoud be integrated into the policy framework authorities develop and deploy around new mobility.

This workshop brings together road safety experts and the transport industry, but is also open to delegates from the ITF Safer City Streets network, the global network for traffic safety experts working in cities. It builds on a dialogue between the industry and public authorities, aiming to better assess and improve the safety of micromobility devices and services.

The workshop assesses the safety of some of the new vehicle types that have emerged recently – especially electric kick-scooters. Keeping in mind, however, that many other yet-unknown vehicle types and business models may be deployed in the future, the meeting  also discusses if and how our safety-assessment frameworks must be adapted and made more proactive. What should form the basis for the categorisation of micromobility and light mobility devices? Should these be regulated on a device-specific basis or on a more general physical characterisatics like mass, power and handling? Do consumer product standards for these devices align fully with road-worthiness requirements set by transport authorities? How should user skills be addressed? Whilst the workshop will focus on electric kick-scooters, it  also lays out the principles for the safety management of similar vehicles. The aim of the project is to frame policy recommendations to best deliver desired safety outcomes for all micromobility services.

Workshop participants discuss how safe electric kick-scooters are, in comparison to other forms of transport, reviewing some of the rare pieces of field research available and also discuss how methods will have to change for the collection of police crash data and hospital injury data to keep up with recent mobility trends and with the possible arrival of new kinds of micro-vehicles.