How to think about micromobility

An e-bicycle for the soul

When I arrived home yesterday, I found an electrically-assisted bike (e-bike or pedelec) parked outside my driveway. I opened the door to a happy teenager (my son) who had found the bike and taken it for a ride. He loved it. Here is a picture of it.

Micromobility is one of the most important trends that we’ll see change our way of life, at least those of us who live in cities. Micromobility is, according to Horace Dediu, the analyst who coined the term, “utility-focussed urban transport in sub 500kg vehicles, and predominantly electrically powered.”  For the rest of us, micromobility represents the flurry of e-scooters and e-bikes that are now dotting, sometimes infesting, cities across the globe.

Cycle sharing isn’t new. The first scheme, an unsuccessful one in Amsterdam, launched in 1965, and today more than 1,000 cities have cycle sharing in one form or the other (docked or dockless). Micromobility, which brings together advances in hardware, software, analytics, and physical operat…