Abstract

Electric moped scooter sharing services have recently experienced strong growth rates, particularly in Europe. Due to their compactness, environmental-friendliness and convenience, shared e-mopeds are suitable for helping to reduce the environmental impact of urban transport. However, its traffic-related, economic and environmental effects are merely represented in academic research. Therefore, this study investigates the ability of an e-moped sharing system to substitute passenger car trips, and the resulting economic and environmental effects. First, we model fleets of 2500, 10,000 and 50,000 shared e-mopeds in Berlin, based on a passenger car scenario generated by the multi-agent transport simulation framework MATSim. Afterwards, the total cost of ownership and a life cycle assessment are conducted. The results indicate that a substantial part of all passenger car trips in Berlin can be substituted. The larger the fleet, the more and longer trips are replaced. Simultaneously, the efficiency in terms of fleet utilization decreases. The scenario with 10,000 e-mopeds offers the lowest total distance-based costs for sharing operators, whereas a fleet consisting of 2500 vehicles exhibits the lowest environmental emissions per kilometer. Already with today’s grid mix, the use of shared e-mopeds results in a significant reduction in environmental impact compared to conventional and battery-electric passenger cars.

Highlights

  • The German government has committed itself under international law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector by 40% to 42% by 2030, compared to1990 [1]

  • With 2500 vehicles deployed, 55,951 trips are conducted in Berlin in 24 h, and 2547 battery sets are swapped

  • A total of 1.95% of all passenger car trips in Berlin on that day can be replaced by the fleet of the base scenario

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Summary

Introduction

The German government has committed itself under international law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector by 40% to 42% by 2030, compared to1990 [1]. New mobility concepts, such as shared mobility with battery electric vehicles (BEV), have emerged, indicating an environmentally friendly solution [3,4]. In contrast to privately owned cars, which are parked on average for 95% of their lifetime [5], the means of transport in a shared fleet can be accessed by multiple individuals on a short-term and as-needed basis [6]. One of the shared vehicles utilized are electric moped scooters (e-mopeds), which have gained popularity in urban areas lately, in Europe [9,10]. An e-moped requires a small parking space, causes low particulate matter emissions by abrasion and offers sufficient velocity and battery capacity to meet the average daily demand in mobility in Germany [11]

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