Exploring Best Practice for Municipal E-Scooter Policy in the United States

Abstract

The transportation and mobility landscape has changed at exponential rates in recent years. This is particularly evident in the spread and use of e-scooters in the United States. It is widely agreed that municipalities need to regulate the deployment of this new form of mobility to capture some of the benefits that these devices provide but also mitigate any impacts and risks associated with their use. This paper evaluates municipalities in the United States that currently have e-scooters deployed and seeks to identify any trends in their policy for regulating e-scooters. As many communities still do not have policy in place, this study seeks to serve as a benchmark for communities seeking to develop policy surrounding e-scooter use and deployment. While there are a variety of issues surrounding e-scooters that need to be analyzed, this study specifically looks at the implementation of pilot programs; e-scooter vendor limits or caps; and the inclusion of equity policy.

Keywords: transportation, micromobility, scooters, policy

JEL Classification: R00