Public views on legalising e-scooters: Insights from a Sydney case study

In common with much of the world, e-scooters − stand-up scooters powered by an electric battery − have emerged onto the urban landscape in Australia promising a practical, greener and ‘fun’ form of personal mobility. However, this promise has unleashed a ‘Pandora’s box’ of legislative challenges with convoluted rules and catch-up regulations around the e-scooters themselves, where they are allowed, and who can use them. Currently, little is known about public views on e-scooters and whether current policies are meeting expectations particularly in jurisdictions where e-scooter use is severely restricted or illegal. Drawing on a survey of 1,522 residents of Greater Sydney, where use of e-scooters on public infrastructure is largely outlawed but ownership and use are growing, half of Sydneysiders indicate support for legalising e-scooters, with one-quarter opposed and one-quarter unsure. Support is marginally higher for private e-scooters, with less negativity toward them than shared e-scooters. Levels of disagreement around where they should be allowed are highest for main roads and footpaths, while levels of agreement are strongest for bicycle paths and to a lesser extent shared paths and low-speed roads, although both attract significant opposition, reflecting the ‘contested’ nature of such spaces. Strong support for helmets, insurance, licencing, and registration points toward treating them more as motorcycles/mopeds than bicycles. Support is marginal for allowing them on public transport. Market segmentation analysis unpicks some of the underlying factors around these heterogenous views, which seem to be strongly linked to age, exposure to e-scooters, perceptions of the local environment and residential location within Greater Sydney. The paper calls for a dialogue to begin around framing regulations for e-scooters and other forms of micro-mobility that not only support the advancement of sustainable transport but do so in a way which responds to public concerns and needs.