Today, more and more people are leaving their cars at home in order to become a part of the growing trend of micromobility. As opposed to a full-size automobile or motorcycle, micromobility relies on bicycles, electric scooters, and even electric bikes to get around town. With these modes of transportation being cheaper than traditional automobiles and motorcycles, there is no wonder why so many people are choosing to swap out their car for an escooter!

So what’s the hard evidence?

Well, in previous articles we have talked about how the micromobility market is growing and how cities are adapting to it and promoting to bring easier commuting and cleaner living environment to people.

These kinds of topics don’t necessarily show the benefits and what’s happening in a scientifically measurable way – except the sales and market data but if we are hard those just mean people buy the products, not how they use them and what their social impact is to the city in everyday life and do they actually reduce car usage and what other kind of changes they cause.

Now there is hard evidence about: “Impacts of micromobility on car displacement with evidence from a natural experiment and geofencing policy” – from Nature energy. The study was made in Atlanta which sets a good base for estimating changes in major US cities.

The paper researches among other things people replace micromobility with cars if micromobility is restricted. Naturally, we see that congestion increases if the choice of using e-bikes and escooters is taken away from people. In the final conclusions the researchers declare:

“Decisions that shape our cities can lead to unexpected effects. We have established that when scooters and e-bikes are banned, drivers experience statistically significant increases in traffic congestion as many riders revert back to passenger vehicles for last-mile transit.”

Some other interesting metrics and findings were:

A major US city shows increases in travel time of 9–11% for daily commuting and 37% for large events if escooters were banned.

Estimated a potential national value of lost time of up to US$536 million, which captures the opportunity cost of lost time in traffic.

The study didn’t pay much attention to the impact on the environment but just the travel times and the fact people have to replace their rides with cars and other forms of transport suggests that the results of a scooter ban wouldn’t be positive.

All in all, it’s a fascinating study that gives hard numbers to prove the benefits of micromobility also from the national economy aspect that isn’t so often talked about.

Read the whole study here.