Dott research reveals the reasons why riders take e-scooters onto the pavement

Dott, the European micromobility company with over 40,000 e-scooters and 10,000 e-bikes in Belgium, France, Israel, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK, have conducted research into the reasons e-scooter riders choose to mount the pavement.

The experiment involved fitting AI cameras to a selection of their scooters in Brussels, Grenoble and Tel Aviv and measuring the amount of time riders spent on pavements. More importantly, the cameras could also identify if there was any reason for the rider to take the scooter onto the pavement.

The cameras, supplied by Luna Systems, gathered data from over 3,000 trips, covering more than 6,000 km.

The findings revealed that the e-scooters were only on the pavement for 7% of the time and, in 71% of those occurrences, the scooters were there because of the road and infrastructure conditions.

The most frequent cause of being on the pavement was to access on-pavement scooter parking (33%). The second most regular cause was riders using pedestrian crossings which lead to a pavement (23%).

Other common causes included cycle lanes ending onto pavements (10%) as well as blocked roads or cycle lanes (7%). Only around 26% of the time could pavement riding be blamed on an irresponsible rider.

Maxim Romain, Co-Founder and COO, Dott, said: ‘It’s clear from these findings that the majority of e-scooter riders want to use them responsibly. If they do resort to riding on pavements, it’s often because they feel safer there. We hope to work closely with the cities we operate in to use these findings to improve road conditions and infrastructure, creating environments where people feel safer and more confident using sustainable transport in the right way.’

Dott has shared the findings with the city authorities, using mapping software which identifies hotspots for pavement riding. They hope that cities can use this data to prioritise which areas are most in need of infrastructure spending and street redesign. They can also target specific riders who frequently ride on pavements with targeted messages, invitations to safe riding courses, or if necessary, remove their access to the service. 

Laura Mollard-Dumont, Mobility Project Manager, City of Grenoble, said: ‘This new technology is beneficial to both city residents, and city authorities. It improves compliance of rules, preventing conflicts between pedestrians and riders. And it also provides us with new data, highlighting infrastructure which is not working as planned or misunderstood by users. These features demonstrate a further advantage of shared scooters over private vehicles, helping city authorities to better understand the different ways to move around the city.’

Further studies will take place in Madrid, Lyon and London this autumn.