Exploring road safety in the era of micro-mobility: evidence from Rome

Abstract

Urbanisation is taking place all over the world, and the number of vehicles on the road is increasing year by year. The worldwide trend highlights the importance of shifting from a private car to public transport and active mobility (e.g., walking, wheeling). Thus, micro-mobility is attracting many users who substitute short round trips and journeys for access/egress to transit services (e.g., home-work-home; home-school-home; tourist movements around historical monuments). Although micro-mobility has many advantages, there are also some disadvantages that need to be pointed out, as well as the road accidents involving such users. For this reason, the paper proposes a study of road accidents involved micro-mobility devices. It presents empirical evidence from Rome (Italy). The main factors are identified, and the patterns and users’ behaviours that could guide the identification of the appropriate countermeasures to adopt are explored. The results of this study may be of interest for local authorities in integrating micro-mobility into urban mobility planning and in promoting new sustainable transport alternatives.