Exploring the adoption of moped scooter-sharing systems in Spanish urban areas

Abstract

Within the context of the sharing economy, innovative mobility solutions are emerging in urban areas to enable people short-term access to means of transport on an as-needed basis. Within this new trend, moped scooter-sharing is experiencing a great boom in many cities worldwide, particularly in Europe. The generalization of electric moped scooter-sharing services can bring benefits such as lowering noise and air pollution or reducing road congestion, with important implication for improving the livability and quality of life in urban areas. To date, many contributions have been conducted to characterize innovative mobility options such as car-sharing or bike-sharing, but almost no efforts have been devoted to explore the use of moped scooter-sharing services. Based on the information collected through an online survey disseminated in different Spanish cities, we developed a generalized ordered logit model to identify the key drivers determining the adoption and frequency of use of moped scooter-sharing services in urban areas. The research concludes the main role played by some sociodemographic and travel-related variables, such as age or level of education, while personal opinions and attitudes were not generally found statistically significant. The research found somehow similar profiles for occasional and frequent users of moped scooter-sharing, then public authorities should make further efforts to overcome the barriers related to the first contact with this mobility option.