Asset management tool

One of the outputs of the project was a tool for micromobility assets management able to automatically update their status and locations and to facilitate regulation enforcement by the city.

The first step was to do a market analysis of the mobility operators in Lisbon, identifying that in 2019 there were 11 e-scooter operators with more than 7.000 working e-scooters all over the city of Lisbon, executing a total of over 10.000 trips of 2.5km on average every month. The study also collected global trends and rider’s profile as well as the impact of Covid-19, which resulted in a dramatic reduction in number of companies, e-scooters and trips. The conclusions were:

• The users of micromobility are mostly males (75%)
• Half of the users use it for commuting or to run own errands
• Dock-less systems facilitate equality in the sense of easier access to the e-scooters
• Micromobility is a perfect alternative to personal vehicle and ride-hailing trips to deliver first and last mile solutions, complementing public transport (9% of the users)

As a second step, a competitor analysis of providers of asset management solutions was executed, analysing the most relevant shared mobility solutions in the market with emphasis on the operator visualization aspects.

Third, user stories were defined to further detail the features according to 4 main pillars: real time control, regulation, compliance and data driven planning. Additionally, research about data integration & data harmonization and the various micro mobility frameworks was done, including the European Interoperability Framework, the General Bikeshare Feed Specification (GBFS) and the Mobility Data Specification (MDS).

Finally, an overview of regulation frameworks in various cities was done to develop the regulation model for the city of Lisbon, which was developed in three main aspects: Ecosystem Regulation Model, Public Space Regulation Models, and Incentive & disincentive framework. The regulation varies from country to country:

• Germany: e-scooters are allowed on public roads if the maximum speed does not exceed 20 km/h, the vehicle is equipped with front lights, side reflectors, two brakes and a bell (or similar);
• Sweden: e-scooters must be equipped as the German ones and, in addition, riders who are younger than 15 years old, must wear a helmet;
• Belgium: e-scooters are allowed on public roads if the speed limit is set at 25 km/h;
• Spain: the maximum speed limit is also set at 25 km/h and e-scooters must have an insurance.

Still, there are common standards:

• Infrastructures on which these vehicles are allowed to be used (bike lanes, roads, streets);
• Compliance with general safety rules (recommendation on wearing a helmet, lights, reflectors, brakes);
• Establishment of minimum age limits that are allowed to ride an e-scooter;
• Training requirements (driving license);
• Only one rider per vehicle.

An important conclusion from the above studies was that it is it is extremely important that cities (and operators) monitor, analyze and assess the impacts of establishing certain measures in order to understand and identify best outcomes and practices, to make the necessary adjustments. To answer to this need, a regulation tool for density control of shared vehicles in the public space was created. The tool enabled the implementation of the selected regulation model, allowing the City Council and service operators to control the density of assets in specific key urban areas by managing events and creating temporary restriction zones, managing alerts and monitoring KPIs in each area.