Is Micromobility more about Convenience than Climate?
Micromobility refers to smaller, lightweight vehicles which are driven by their users personally e.g. bicycles, e-bikes, electric scooters, or electric skateboards. These are becoming increasingly popular, both privately owned and those borrowed or hired from a larger fleet, especially in big cities.
Can micromobility solve the environmental issues caused by cars?
If we take London as an example, Transport for London (TFL) has continuously tried to reduce the amount of fossil fuel used within the city. This has included multiple congestion charge zones which were introduced in 2003, a low emission zone charge in 2008, and then a further ultra-low emission zone in 2019, all of which were designed to reduce traffic pollution and noise, and to improve air quality. TFL has also released an e-scooter fleet with 3400 scooters, provided by Lime, Tier and Dott, which people pay per minute to use. These have been used for 165,000 trips since June 2021. However, the number of licensed cars in London has had a net increase of 17% between 1995 and 2020 with 2.6 million passenger cars in 2020. This number has slightly fallen over the last two years, although the pandemic has contributed to this fall, as people were required and encouraged to stay at home. Therefore, even though the e-scooter fleet has had some popularity, it’s not had any significant impact on the number of cars on the roads in London. Instead, they seem to be replacing trips on the ‘Boris Bikes’ (Santander Cycles) or London Underground, both of which are already low in emission levels (see graph below).
It is important to decrease global emissions, and to reduce the numbers of people buying and using cars; the transport industry is responsible for nearly 30% of the EU’s total CO2 emissions, with 72% of that coming from road transportation. Unfortunately, so far, it doesn’t appear that micromobility can actually achieve this required shift on its own. This could be for several reasons that aren’t necessarily connected to climate problems, but are still essential to think about. For example, some micromobility transport methods, such as e-scooters, are still illegal to own as a personal item and so can only be hired out. To hire an e-scooter in the UK, it is essential to have a driving license which makes it inaccessible to anyone under 17 and also those who haven’t learnt how to drive. Since it is driven by a single user, it also makes it more difficult for families to use, especially for families with children who wouldn’t be able to hire a scooter. Research from Zurich found that shared e-scooters and e-bikes mostly replace walking, cycling and public transport and so they can be guilty of emitting more carbon dioxide than the transport mode that they replace. Personally owned e-scooters or e-bikes are more often used as replacements for cars, and so emit less carbon dioxide than the transport they replace and contribute to making urban transport more sustainable.
In addition to this, questions remain around the emissions levels of electric scooters. Whilst in use, there are practically no emissions from scooters, however overall they cannot be considered carbon-neutral solutions due to the emissions in the process of creating the scooters, and also emissions from transport (often trucks) used to transfer scooters to charging points.
Should micromobility replace other forms of public transport?
One of the limitations with micromobility is that compared to other forms of public transport, it suffers from an element of ableism. An individual who is wheelchair-bound would not be able to use a bicycle or e-scooter etc, but would be able to use other forms of public transport or privately owned cars. Almost all of TFL’s services are now made step-free, including buses that are lowered, and tube stations that can be accessed using an elevator, making all of these more accessible options than current micromobility methods of transport.
Equally, using micromobility is not always available to the wider public. Hired e-scooters are not available everywhere; they are primarily in large cities at the moment. Pedal bicycles don’t have large borrow schemes in the UK apart from in London and are otherwise down to people having the finances to pay for one themselves (something not everyone is privileged enough to do). It also depends on the weather, something we are not lucky with in the UK!
There is also the question of either buses or scooters being more sustainable. Buses carry more people over the course of the day, and as a result, reduces the need for people to buy or use individual cars. Whilst scooters also prevent people from using cars, they are not able to do so in large quantities.
The limitations of micromobility as a solution
One of the key problems with micromobility transport methods is that they are not transitional technology (TT). TT are developments that are co-evolutionary and multidimensional which provide societal needs, wants and uses. Micromobility transport which uses batteries for their primary movement are a newer technology but are not multidimensional enough to be considered a TT, due to the impact of batteries.
Are batteries much better than other types of fuel? They do have a key role in decarbonisation but they also have environmental and social issues. Research has also found that the manufacture of an electric car battery emits 74% more carbon dioxide (a key emission in climate change) than producing a conventional car. Obviously, the batteries produced from micromobility such as e-scooters will be much smaller and therefore contribute less carbon dioxide, but it is still outgoing which makes it much less carbon neutral. Socially, there are massive concerns over how ethical it is to produce these batteries. Lithium, which is a key component in batteries alongside nickel, manganese and cobalt, all raise social and environmental issues. Lithium mining in South America is associated with contaminating local water basins and the salination of freshwater which is needed for drinking by local communities. Child labour has been reported in cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the pollution has led to birth defects in the local population. In fact the mining industry as a whole seems to self-moderate for both workers and the environment which leaves it open to manipulation. Recycling batteries is complex and time-consuming. It’s hard to measure the number of batteries being created, but a 2021 report by Circular Energy Storage estimated that the market has grown by 720% since 2009. This means there are A LOT of batteries that are now depleted and ready for recycling. In addition to the quantity, recycling material such as lithium is complicated as it is toxic and highly reactive. We need to be more honest about issues with batteries in order to start creating teams to solve them.
Another limitation is that micromobility methods of transport are not accessible everywhere. In smaller towns or more rural areas, it can be many miles to the nearest grocery shop or even a neighbour. These areas are often frequented less by public transport or may have a bus but on a very light schedule. These areas equally may not even be accessible using electric vehicles as the charging systems are not countrywide yet. However, it is likely that individuals living in small villages do not use their cars daily unless they commute for work, making it difficult to say whether this is less sustainable for the environment than people living in big cities who have better access to public transport.
How can we increase the benefits of micromobility?
The 15-Minute City Project was created by Dan Luscher, and explores the feasibility of creating cities where inhabitants would live within a 15 minutes walk or cycle of all amenities. This is where micromobility would thrive as it would mean that we could easily take a bicycle or e-bike somewhere close. Obviously this is easier said than done in the real world, however it might help to look at micromobility as in essence being like city planning, i.e. can we as a society build a transportation system and plan out our towns and cities in ways that would allow and encourage people to live and commute only using their own smaller transport or walking?
There are a number of exciting startups in this space trying to encourage people to leave cars in the past and focus on more sustainable ways to travel, with a particular focus on addressing safety and security concerns that historically may have made road users more comfortable using cars. BackPedal work inside London to prevent and help after bike theft, both leg and battery powered. They do this by fitting a GPS and also having a team that track the bike after it has been stolen. Shanti is looking at building safe routes around Mexico City, including having ‘safe shops’ to stay in at night.
In conclusion, micromobility is a great stepping stone towards a more green future, but in its current format, questions remain about it being the best solution at large scale. It encourages people to think more about their emissions from travel, and might even change some behaviours but there is significant room in the space to improve. A key question remains around how we as a society can make our cities more green overall, with green transport forming an important part of that discussion. From considering commutes to work to the ease of access to green transport options and understanding how we as individuals can reduce our transport based carbon footprint, the shift towards green cities is multi-layered and important.
Change can start with one person making a seemingly small shift. Carbon calculators are a great first step in exploring our individual impact — we hope you’ll take the time to explore your own footprint and share your results with us.
