Cross-Country Comparison of Micromobility Safety, Built Environment and User Behavior

Despite a growing interest in studying micromobility such as e-bikes and scooters in recent years, few studies have focused specifically on user behavior and safety, not to mention comparative studies across jurisdictions. Due to lack of consistent data and complex policy context, previous studies on micromobility are better represented in North American and European countries which saw a rapid market penetration. However, micromobility is not completely new in some other countries, especially in Asia. For example, e- bikes and mopeds have long been prevailing in China and southeast Asia. How does micromobility user safety behavior differ across countries and types of built environment and existing bicycle infrastructure? This project aims to investigate this question through four case studies in four cities of the San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco, San Jose) and Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong) with drastically different built environment and mobility landscape. The general understanding of difference in micromobility user behaviors and safety risks from a human-centric perspective in different built environment and policy contexts can potentially inform international standards and guidelines for micromobility safety policy and infrastructure design. This report summarizes preliminary findings from hundreds of hours of field observation data over multi-year fieldwork during 2022 in these four cities, supplemented by interviews and secondary data, and provides directions for future research.

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