E-Scooter Safety Assessment and Campus Deployment Planning

E-Scooters are a popular new service that provide last mile transportation, and can potentially replace car trips and potentially make transit more palatable, but there are reports of safety concerns for riders and other users of rights of way in areas where e-scooters are already deployed. Very little formal research has been conducted on the safety of this form of transportation as well as the optimal approach to deployment to decrease nuisance issues. As such, VTTI will team with Spin to deploy a fleet of e-scooters on the Virginia Tech campus through an exclusive, controlled research program. VTTI will add a data acquisition system to a subset of scooters that will collect data to assess safety impact, what behaviors are exhibited that may be beneficial or problematic, and ways in which kinematic and/or other data may be used to predict risky behavior and develop subsequent countermeasures. In addition, fixed cameras will be deployed to evaluate a variety of behavioral measures through a classification system that will be developed as part of the project. The resulting data will be used to assess impacts on safety, nuisance, and mobility, identify unique countermeasures to problems associated with e-scooter deployments where possible, and generate deployment requirements and guidelines for future open competition.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $467126
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747115

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Safety through Disruption University Transportation Center (Safe-D)

  Virginia Tech Transportation Institute
  Blacksburg, VA  United States  24060
• Project Managers:

  Glenn, Eric

• Performing Organizations:

  Virginia Tech Transportation Institute

  3500 Transportation Research Plaza
  Blacksburg, Virginia  United States  24061
• Principal Investigators:

  Mollenhauer, Michael

• Start Date: 20190603
• Expected Completion Date: 20220930
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Cameras; Campuses; Countermeasures; Data collection; Electric vehicles; Evaluation and assessment; Implementation; Risk assessment; Safety; Scooters
• Identifier Terms: Virginia Tech University
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01707625
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Safety through Disruption University Transportation Center (Safe-D)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747115
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Jun 6 2019 4:07PM