TRL has produced a technical research paper commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT) to support the development of regulations for e-scooters in the UK. The report, co-authored by WMG at the University of Warwick, sets out what the future technical requirements for e-scooters should be in order to optimise safety, sustainability and accessibility. The work focused on how to develop regulations to ensure that risks posed to e-scooter users and other road users are as low as possible, that the design of e-scooters is inclusive for all, including disabled people, and that the sustainability of e-scooters is maximised in order to make a net contribution towards zero carbon emissions.
The DfT has previously proposed to create a Light Zero Emission Vehicle (LZEV) category to encourage the growth and adoption of light electric vehicles while maintaining safety standards. This category would include within it sub-categories for different groups of light vehicles, of which e-scooters would be one, and these vehicles would effectively sit outside the remit of motor vehicle regulations (i.e. the L-category). Currently however e-scooters have no formal definition; this report sets out 10 primary recommendations to inform development of this new category and the technical definition of e-scooters.
Dr Ianto Guy, Technical Lead for the research said: “Through this project we have gathered evidence to inform requirements for the design, construction, sale, use, and maintenance of e-scooters. Consideration of the mobility needs of disabled people was also a primary focus to ensure that regulations can unlock the micromobility market for everyone. Our goal was to assist the DfT in developing effective regulations for e-scooters that are sufficiently flexible and proportionate to promote innovation and minimise burden for industry”.
The key recommendations are:
- To make e-scooters accessible to the greatest range of users and improve their utility to disabled people, regulation should permit the design, manufacture and sale of e-scooters with (or without) seats and with 2 or more wheels.
- Permitting e-scooters to be used on footways will bring clear accessibility benefits for those with mobility impairments. However, there are legitimate concerns that permitting e-scooters to be ridden on the footway will inevitably bring them into conflict with pedestrians. This is of particular concern to visually-impaired people and older people. Further work is needed to understand how to mitigate these risks while ensuring micromobility is accessible for all.
- Practical performance-based tests for e-scooter stability should be adopted, for example, based on those currently applied in Germany under the eKFV approval system.
- The structural integrity requirements in BS EN17128:2020 should be updated in order to make them more robust and more closely aligned to real-world use cases.
- E-scooters should be fitted with a system that limits their maximum speed which cannot be easily defeated.
- The laden mass of e-scooters should be regulated, rather than their unladen mass.
- BS EN 17128:2020 should be updated to contain the same battery requirements as BS EN 15194, therefore ensuring the battery complies with EN 50604-1:2016+A1:2021. At the same time, BS EN 50604-1 should undergo a thorough revision and be updated to address current shortcomings.
- The acceleration of e-scooters should be limited to a maximum of 2 m/s2, in line with BS EN 17128:2020. Limiting acceleration of an e-scooter (along with speed and mass) is a more effective safety critical measure than implementing a power limit.
- In order to reduce whole life carbon emissions, measures should be introduced to prolong the lives of e-scooters. These include the introduction of “right-to-repair” requirements and extending the mandatory warranty period to at least 2 years.
- While local authorities may wish to stipulate certain technical characteristics for the scooters used in open access rental schemes, and should continue to be allowed to do so via their licensing of those schemes, we suggest there is no strong case to support different technical regulations for shared and privately owned e-scooters.
These recommendations align with those recently made by TRL in a separate project for the European Commission with regards to harmonisation of e-scooter regulations across Europe.
TRL’s Head of New Mobility, Dr George Beard, said: “TRL drew on its in-depth knowledge of and experience developing national and international regulations and standards for new vehicle types to deliver this research project. We also engaged with industry to ensure our recommendations will help to deliver a regulatory mechanism which is mindful of the needs and practical challenges faced by manufacturers, retailers and rental scheme operators. We believe that e-scooters can represent a genuine modal alternative to many transport users and therefore have a valuable role to play in delivering the UK’s decarbonisation goals. Despite Brexit, there are also clear benefits to aligning the approach across Europe; we have applied a consistent philosophy in these concurrent projects for the UK Department for Transport and the European Commission to facilitate market access and encourage adoption of universal safety, sustainability and accessibility standards.”
Core to this is ensuring e-scooters are as sustainable as possible from a whole lifecycle perspective; a fundamental part of the research therefore concentrated on developing recommendations for how to ensure best practices in sustainability are adhered to by the whole supply chain.
Mark Urbanowski, Principal Engineer at WMG—who led the sustainability research within the project—said: “Typically, 70% of product emissions are embedded within supply chains. By developing sustainability requirements for e-scooters, stakeholders will be motivated to extend vehicle life as well as improve product design and manufacturing processes, reducing waste and maximising use of sustainable recyclable materials and components. Including sustainability in the proposed technical requirements ensures a level playing field with a common set of rules and will reduce environmental impact across all stages of the LZEV value chain”.
The DfT will require a Transport Bill to provide regulatory powers for new LZEVs. Trials of rental schemes have been extended in order to allow further data to be captured into the use of and safety of e-scooters.
The full report can be downloaded here
ENDS
