A ‘groundbreaking’ study has provided insights on e-scooter riders in Virginia, US, revealing that infrastructure-related factors, the behaviours of e-scooter riders and others around them, and environmental factors all created risk for users.
Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) began the study of e-scooter riders in September 2019. Over the span of 18 months, 50 scooters collected over 9,000 miles of data from over 200,000 rides on Virginia Tech's Blacksburg campus.
The scooters were equipped with forward-facing cameras and other research equipment. Deployment of the scooters began in August 2019 and they were removed from campus during the Covid-19 pandemic. They were redeployed in August 2021 through the academic year.
Researchers found that loss of control related to infrastructure was the greatest contributor to all crash and near-crash events, equating to 47%. In total, infrastructure caused 67% of incidents, the study found, followed by the presence of other road users at 19% and rider behaviour at 14%.
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Transitions from surfaces, such as moving from gravel or dirt to grass, proved to be the ‘riskiest’, with those riders almost 60 times more likely to have a crash or near-crash experience. Riding off a designated path, or off-road, made users nearly 25 times more likely to experience issues compared to those who rode on a shared path.
Elizabeth White, programs and business manager for VTTI, said: “The e-scooter deployment at Virginia Tech collected the largest naturalistic e-scooter data set known to date and quantified the safety risks associated with behavioural, infrastructure, and environmental factors. This was a very exciting research program to be a part of, and our collaboration with many departments on campus was invaluable to ensuring a safe deployment.”
White was the lead researcher of the team that included six other Virginia Tech researchers and other industry experts. The results were recently published in the Journal of Safety Research.
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E-scooters can be ridden in the UK when part of official trials, which began in 2020. The vehicles can be used on the roads, except motorways, and in cycle lanes, but cannot be ridden on the pavement. Privately-owned e-scooters remain illegal to use on public roads - check out our guide to e-scooters and the law here.
