Shared dockless electric bikes encroach on the territory of scooters
Shared modes of transportation, long dominated by electric scooters, are experiencing considerable growth with the emergence of dockless electric bikes.
This shift in urban travel habits is particularly striking in the year 2023, marking a persistence of this trend.
The removal of self-service scooters in cities like Paris does not seem to slow the momentum of green mobility.
A detailed report by Fluctuo, incorporating data from 115 European cities, reveals that more than 530 million shared trips have been made, with electric scooters and bikes accounting for 89% of this total.
Electric scooters are losing ground while bikes are taking over
While electric scooters account for about 45% of trips, bikes are climbing to a proportion of 40%, a majority of which are linked to station-based systems like Vélib’.
At the end of the year 2023, Europe had approximately 800,000 light mobility vehicles, dominated by electric scooters which make up two-thirds of this fleet.
A geographic redistribution of electric scooters
Western European metropolises are seeing their scooter fleets decrease due to new regulations, but these are finding new life in small Eastern cities.
According to Fluctuo, regulation results in a reduction of fleets in large cities, but a balance occurs through the expansion into smaller cities that had not previously adopted such fleets.
This is how the distribution of scooters is balancing out, with a minor increase of 1%, that is 514,000 units, largely due to growth in Eastern European countries of 33%, offsetting the decrease noted in the west and south.
Paris and London: two models of growth for the self-service bicycle
Unlike scooters, bikes did not undergo drastic cuts and even saw their fleets increase by 22%.
This increase is mainly due to self-service bikes, which have seen a 50% rise as opposed to station-based systems increasing only by 9%.
The use of station-based bikes like Vélib’ still dominates in Europe with 45 million trips recorded, far ahead of Barcelona or London.
However, in Paris, the fleet of self-service bikes has grown, in reaction to the elimination of electric scooters, posing a challenge to London and its 20 million trips. Fluctuo anticipates a more pronounced growth in the self-service sector for the coming year 2024 and puts a particular focus on Lille, which has just introduced 4,000 dockless electric bikes.
