How e-scooters can help the economy recovery in the pandemic
With the onset of the global pandemic in 2020, we were forced to change the way we live – the UK’s main streets, transport hubs and hotels, which were once busy places, were brought to a standstill.
In 2021 with the start of the vaccination against COVID-19, we begin to see the return of everyday life, people returning to commuting from their jobs, eating out, shopping, and most importantly, the economy returning to grow after a long period.
In order to help people and bring more safety, socially-distanced modes of transport are essential. E-scooters and e-bikes, for example, are personal, safe and, convenient transportation options for getting people around at certain spots.
E-scooter trials have been taking place in many regions of the UK, providing communities with a safe, sustainable, affordable and, accessible way of individual mobility. E-scooters not only ease the burden of using public transport, but they also improve air quality by reducing individual car trips with a zero-emission alternative.
New job opportunities
To bring e-scooters to communities and cities across the UK several job opportunities will be created. The Platform Electro Mobility has identified electro-mobility as “crucial to Europe’s economic recovery after COVID-19”. There is a possibility of creating more than a million jobs in vehicle and rail manufacturing, infrastructure deployment and supply points such as batteries by 2030.
Helping local businesses
According to researchers at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School in the United States, local economies experienced a significant increase in shared e-scooter systems due to approximately $13.8 million in additional sales at 370 food and beverage companies in four locations (Atlanta, Austin, San Francisco, and Washington DC) during six months in 2019.
The UK’s towns and cities should also look to Shared Spaces programs, such as those in San Francisco and Valencia, which provide unauthorized outdoor spaces such as sidewalks, streets, and parking spaces for businesses to use as seating or retail.
E-scooters are the perfect mode of transportation to get people into these locations. Valencia for example has grown 60 percent in numbers of trips from Thursday to Sunday in Shared Space locations.
Tourism support
In addition, e-scooters play a key role in the area of tourism, not only as a way for locals to get around for their own account or leisure, but also as a way to go sightseeing through guided tours.
During 2019, the UK welcomed over 40 million tourists, the expectation is that it will pick up these numbers and e-scooters will be a fun and more environmentally friendly way for tourists to get around and experience cities.
Of course, in a cautiously optimistic way it is hoped that micro mobility will play a key role in revitalizing local economic parts of the UK.
