Examining municipal guidelines for users of shared E-Scooters in the United States

Abstract

The emergence of shared electric scooters (E-Scooters) has drawn the significant attention of local governments in many urban areas. Despite the fast growth in the number of trips, current guidelines for using E-Scooters have consistently experienced lags in development. Existing guidelines, in some cities, are rather vague and vary drastically across different areas. This paper aims to analyze current municipal requirements for the use of E-Scooters in the U.S., and to discuss more gaps for improvement. Specifically, E-Scooter user guidelines of 156 cities were explored. A multifaceted analysis was conducted to characterize the distinct features of E-Scooter user guidelines. A total of sixteen key attributes were identified and two categorizing procedures were implemented in the analysis. The comparative results show the completeness of information and similarities between cities. We conclude that municipalities should introduce more actionable guidelines driven by quantitative performance metrics.