E-scooters - a solution to our traffic problems?

One thing is certain. Many e-scooters start-ups are ready and rolling out their products and services in Germany now. But cities and municipalities are unsettled and ask themselves many questions:

• What potential do the e-scooters offer?
• Will the rollout of e-scooters in Germany repeat the scenario of the Asian rental bike providers, which flooded many German cities in 2017 unannounced - virtually overnight?
• Are we expecting the same problems as in the original market USA? There one had also distributed overnight the E-scooters without permission on the streets, they drove on sidewalks and parked without permission and they became victims of vandalism.
• Or can we expect positive results, such as a switch from the passenger car to E-scooters?

Bamberg was the first German city, which entered into a cooperation with an E-scooter company. Even before the entry into force of the Elektrokleinstfahrzeuge-Verordnung (eKFV), on June 15, 2019, a project was initiated to test the suitability of e-scooters for local conditions. Thus, the city of Bamberg conducted the first field test with e-scooters in Germany. This test was accompanied by a user questionnaire. The results are part of an ongoing cooperative PhD project of the author Jennifer Reinz-Zettler at the Bauhaus University Weimar and the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt as well as the Bayern Innovativ GmbH. The following whitepaper presents the results and can be downloaded free of charge.