Dockless Electric Scooters Worldwide: Tools, Methods, and Longitudinal Analysis

Public availability of data about the supply and utilization of Dockless Electric Scooters (DESs) is needed to develop smart mobility applications to promote the use of sustainable, shared, and equitable transportation. Prior studies have analyzed some attributes of DES usage, but they are limited in three aspects. 1) Data collection methods: Prior studies relied on DES providers to provide usage data to authors. Unfortunately, convincing DES providers to provide complete usage data is extremely hard, if not impossible. Thus, this approach is not scalable and further limits the ability to study DES usage trends only in the regions and only at the times for which the DES providers provide the data. 2) Global DES usage analysis: Prior studies have not analyzed how DES usage varies in different parts of the world. 3) Aspects of the usage analysis: Prior studies have not analyzed important DES usage attributes such as the availability of DES in minority-concentrated areas, temporal trends of DES trips from different types of locations, etc. This paper fills the gap in prior work by addressing these three limitations. For data collection methods, we present novel techniques to continuously collect DES usage data in any city worldwide without relying on DES providers. For global DES usage analysis, we study the spatiotemporal DES usage trends of 12 DES providers in 11 cities worldwide. For the aspects of the usage analysis, we provide extensive analysis of various aspects of DES usage that have previously either never been studied or studied only briefly. These aspects include DES supply trends, competition among providers, supply and trip hotspots, equitable DES availability, and so on. The methods and findings that we present in this paper aid in understanding DES usage across the world and offer actionable insights to DES stakeholders.