Micro-Mobility User Pattern and Station Location in Thessaloniki: History
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Contributor:
Georgia Ayfantopoulou
,
Josep Maria Salanova Grau
,
Zisis Maleas
,
Alexandros Siomos

In recent years, European countries have been trying to cultivate electrical scooters (e-scooters) as an alternative form of micro-mobility. The purchase and maintenance costs of private e-scooters are expensive so cities have been collaborating with companies to construct an e-scooter rental network. There are two main features: the initial–final position of the e-scooter (the total distance is unknown) and the travel time. Most e-scooter rides refer to leisure trips but there is a portion of users that ride e-scooters for casual trips or commutes to and from work. Here, an electrical scooter network that covers the demand of the city of Thessaloniki is suggested. The implementation plan indicates three stages of construction up to the completion of the network.

  • e-scooter patterns
  • infrastructure
  • e-scooter trips
  • micro-mobility

1. Introduction

The continuous increase in city populations has led to the introduction of new manners of transportation. Conventional forms of transportation, such as buses and taxis, are inadequate due to a lack of accessibility and high service costs. Citizens are looking for alternative forms of transportation that bring them closer to their destination and avoid overcrowding. However, the benefits of electric vehicles are often ignored due to the appropriate information regarding these vehicles not being provided through courses or lectures [1]. In this direction, cities suggest light transport vehicles for short distance travel in the context of micro-mobility. The most popular light transport vehicles are bicycles (bicycles, e-bikes, shared bicycles and electric bicycles with electric assistance from pedals), e-scooters and e-skateboards.
E-scooters are the most modern form of transportation that is becoming increasingly popular for travel within the city. In recent years, many companies have invested in e-scooters, promoting them in various locations that are easily accessible. The companies claim that they offer convenient and flexible services for the citizen. The e-scooter ride is a simple process that requires finding and acquiring the e-scooter through use of the respective application of the company. The rider should follow the appropriate driving legislation and ensure a safe parking location. E-scooters combine an economical option with a friendly impact on the environment. The positive contribution to the environment arises from the electric motor in the context of energy efficiency from renewable energy sources, which results in zero CO2 emissions during use. On the other hand, the main construction materials of e-scooters are aluminium parts and batteries, which have a negative impact on the environment during construction [2][3].
The e-scooter operation is a new form of transportation that should be developed over the coming years. The state is called to understand the use of e-scooters and make the necessary actions to enhance their sustainability. Development of the city infrastructure can create a favorable environment for e-scooter use. The construction of e-scooter stations is a substantial upgrade that can provide safety to the stopped e-scooter and battery charging. However, it is difficult to capture e-scooter use patterns due to random use, and consequently, it is difficult to decide the proper location for the stations in order to serve most citizens with the lowest cost.

2. Micro-Mobility User Pattern and Station Location in Thessaloniki

Electric scooters first appeared in the USA as an upgrade to the bicycle. In 2018, e-scooters recorded about 34 million trips in the USA, while in 2019, the number of trips reached 86 million [4]. In Europe, it is estimated that the number of scooters is close to 360,000, although the exact number of trips is not possible to determine due to the structure of European countries [5]. According to the Lime company, in Madrid and Prague, there are 1,000,000 trips made in a year. Additionally, the trips that take place in Greece reach 1 million per year among the cities of Athens, Thessaloniki and Chania [6]. The use of e-scooters enhances society on multiple levels. The most important effects are environmental, social, economic and spatial. In particular, it is observed that 24% of the CO2 produced in cities comes from transport, which makes up 29% of global energy demand. The use of e-scooters significantly reduces energy consumption by up to 50% [7]. Socially, the size of the e-scooter makes it approachable for both sexes. In fact, women prefer electric e-scooters to bicycles for long distances because they are more convenient. Electric scooters are also a reliable travel solution, combining low transportation costs with a comfortable trip. The use of e-scooters is more economical, compared to cars, for short-distance traveling [8]. The concentration of populations in large urban centers contributes to the expansion of cities. E-scooters have an installed detection system to track trips and find the locations with high demand. City centers suffer from traffic congestion due to the large influx of citizens, with parking being a major problem for vehicles. The parking space of five e-scooters corresponds to that of one car.
Cities are trying to create an e-scooter network by constructing scooter stations in critical spots. The stations should cover the e-scooter demand quantitatively and spatially. Cities should have a sufficient number of stations to satisfy citizens from different regions and stations should contain scooters for every potential user. The construction of the stations is determined by the users’ behavior. There are two basic usage patterns: entertainment and the commute to work. Regions for entertainment consist of parks or bicycle paths. In contrast, users that commute to work use areas in the city center where there are many offices and businesses.
The field of transportation consists of various levels that require different approaches to analyze modes of operation, which is influenced by many factors. The continuing operation of transport regularly creates repetitive patterns that should be recognized in order to improve the whole process. Researchers have applied and upgraded methods to identify and capture patterns. Overcrowded cities should manage a traffic system; Support Vector Machines (SVM) have demonstrated great results in urban road traffic condition pattern recognition [9]. Clustering methods are able to effectively identify patterns: K-means clustering is applied to recognize delay patterns on a high traffic railway [10] and a variant of this is enhanced with the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) [11] to recognize traffic patterns [12]. Additionally, the Density-based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) algorithm created clusters about individual transit riders in a wide repository [13][14]. Recently, convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithms have been applied to identify travel patterns. The CNN receives timetables and manages them as images to capture the fluctuation of transport [15][16][17][18].
Many studies have examined shared bicycle usage patterns, but the e-scooter usage pattern remains questionable. The accuracy of detecting usage is limited by two main reasons: firstly, there is not enough volume of data for processing because the usage is recorded for short time, and secondly, companies do not easily disclose data on the use of e-scooters.
Most studies refer to the usage pattern of e-scooters in the USA. According to the NACTO (National Association of City Transportation Officials, NY, USA), the areas with the most intense use of e-scooters are Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Diego and Washington, in which there is also the largest number of e-scooters [4]. E-scooters and bicycles were introduced to replace the use of cars for short distances. McKenzie tries to interpret the movement of e-scooters in Washington by comparing it with the movement of bicycles. Their interpretation reveals that e-scooters are used for entertainment, but the study fails to connect e-scooter usage with commuting from or to the workplace. The study claims that e-scooters are used for entertainment and tourism rather than as a means of transportation [19]. Additionally, citizens in the city of Thessaloniki prefer to use e-scooters instead of walking and public transport for their leisure time [20]. On the contrary, a survey carried out in Palermo showed that 77.5% of the participants used e-scooters to commute to work during the pandemic [21]. Austin, Texas, a city with a large number of e-scooters, has proven that users move mainly in the city center, especially at the university [22]. Another study suggested that the main e-scooter users in Austin are middle-income and well-educated men, while the users under the age of 25 do not affect the number of trips [23]. The e-scooter service should upgrade its operation and adapt to every user’s need, and deal with community problems such as the gender gap [24]. However, micro-mobility electric vehicles are a new form of transport and have many aspects that should be discovered and integrated into city transport [25].
The establishment and usage of e-scooters was delayed in Europe and tracing usage patterns is even more difficult. For the first few years, each e-scooter company operated independently in every country. MMfE (micro-mobility Transforming Urban Mobility for Europe) was founded in Brussels (2 February 2021) and owns the eight largest e-scooter companies (Bird, Bolt, Dott, FreeNow, Lime, TIER, Voi and Wind) [26]. The main purpose for the collaboration is to develop a reliable e-scooter network in Europe. MMfE members are active in more than 20 European countries and more than 100 European cities. A survey on e-PMV (Personal Mobility Vehicles), including e-bikes, e-scooters and self-balancing vehicles, indicated e-scooter usage patterns: users preferred to ride the e-scooters on weekend afternoons for entertainment, while on a daily basis, they were used to travel to and from work, or reach the nearest bus station [27].
The construction of charging stations is a necessary procedure for the sustainability of e-scooters as they are not fully autonomous. The decision of the station location should serve the users, in addition to normal mobility in the city. A key factor affecting the establishment of stations is the demand points and the usage patterns (e.g., entertainment, commute from/to work, tourism etc.). However, the construction of many stations is limited due to the cost of construction and maintenance, which is expensive.
In order to present micro-mobility vehicles as a sustainable solution, it is important to determine the appropriate definition of the measurements in order to develop a suitable methodology [28]. The demand coverage is characterized by two main factors: easy accessibility for users to the e-scooters (minimizing the time it takes to find them) and the width of the area that can be served from the stop (maximization of spatial distance from the stop) [8][19]. A survey by Church, Stoms and ReVelle approached the problem as a Maximal Coverage Location Problem in order to cover the maximum possible area with a certain number of stations [29]. Another method is the Location Set Covering, which finds the smallest number of stops and locations for station installations. This method ensures that every e-scooter is a reasonable distance away from the station [30]. One improvement to the above approaches that is more efficient concerning demand problems includes the Improved Set Covering Location Model (ISCLM), which limits the construction of stations according to demand [31][32]. The Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) algorithm also achieves efficient results. The main variables it uses to detect stops are generational distance, maximum spread, spacing and diversity metric [33]. However, the construction of the stations should take into account the safety of the user and the efficiency of the trips for a friendlier e-scooter context [34].
E-scooters are intended to replace cars as the primary mode of transportation in cities; however, one drawback is that e-scooters are unable to sustain their power over long distances. Hanabusa and Horiguchi addressed this problem by minimizing the time and costs associated with refueling or replacement for covering longer distances and reducing the charging time at the station [35]. Moreover, stations should be prepared to respond to user requirements in a minimum timeframe. The average or maximum waiting time for recharging is an indicator of the effectiveness of the stops [36].
It is important to present the factors that affect the total cost for the construction of the necessary stations. According to Cui and Weng, three main reasons influence the construction of charging stations. The first factor is the demand that directly affects the number of stations. The second is the cost of the area that should be acquired. The third is the cost of the voltage provided by the station to the e-scooters that are parked [37].

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su14116715

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