Perspectives on e-scooters use: A multi-year cross-sectional approach to understanding e-scooter travel behavior in Portland, Oregon

Abstract

Unique travel behavior patterns are observed as shared electric scooters (e-scooters) provided by private operators expand into U.S. cities. Three separate years of e-scooter ridership survey data from the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s E-scooter Pilot Programs were analyzed to ascertain the multi-year cross-sectional and demographic characteristics of e-scooter riders. A binary logistic regression model, descriptive statistics, and multiple regression model are used to analyze e-scooter mode substitution, trip purposes, and travel distance from 2018 to 2020 in Portland, Oregon. Since the introduction of e-scooter in 2018, respondents have been less likely to use their previous transportation, and especially vehicle trips were consistently replaced with e-scooter trips during three different periods of analysis. In 2020, utilitarian trips, work/school trips, and trips for accessing transit stops replaced recreation trips as the primary trip purpose. The travel distance model shows that e-scooters can help to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by replacing car and ride-hail/taxis trips. With the result of this research, this study supports shared e-scooters as a viable transportation mode in the future that can achieve several policy goals, such as climate change, congestion, first/last mile connector to transit, and equity.