Selection of an Electric Scooter for Shared Mobility Services Using Multicriteria Decision Support Methods

Abstract

In recent years, the electromobility market has been growing faster and faster. Electric scooters and scooter-sharing services offered for them, available in many cities around the world, have a special impact on its intensification. The constantly growing number of scooters and service operators brings many problems related to the proper functioning of services. In the literature, one can find attempts to solve the problems of scooters with references to the issues of transport, modeling and optimization, as well as legislative and social aspects. Technical issues, however, are overlooked. Among them, however, there is a problem with the appropriate selection of scooter models that can be used in scooter-sharing systems. Solving this type of problem may allow systems to be better matched to urban transport systems, increase the development of electromobility and encourage societies to transition from current means of transport (e.g., cars) to scooters. Paying attention to this research niche, the article is devoted to the selection of electric scooters for scooter sharing. This paper presents the author’s own research for the Polish market of scooter-sharing services. As part of the work, the author’s own list of factors from the point of view of which scooters can be assessed was developed; social research was conducted, considering the opinions of experts in the field of scooter sharing; and it was proposed to treat the problem of selecting scooters as a complex multicriteria decision-making problem. Moreover, the ELECTRE III method was used to solve this research problem in an innovative way. The research results indicate that when choosing a scooter, you should be guided primarily by such factors as the greatest range, equipping the vehicles with safety systems and the most powerful engine. Interestingly, the price of vehicles does not have to be the lowest possible. The article presents guidelines that support operators when upgrading or equipping systems with scooters and support individual users at the stage of deciding to buy a scooter.