Browsing by Author "Penttinen, Merja"
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- Balancing Sustainable Mobility and Safety: E-scooter Usage in Kallio
Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu | Bachelor's thesis(2024-09-06) Innamaa, MatiasThe aim of this thesis is to analyse the current shared electric scooter situation of Kallio city district in Helsinki. Shared e-scooters first arrived in Helsinki during 2016 and have since found their role in sustainable urban transport. They could have an important role in increasing the share of sustainable transport options. However, due to various issues, restrictions have had to be imposed to them by the city of Helsinki. Current restrictions are from 2023 and affect e.g., speed limits, parking and hours of operation. The goal of this thesis is to assess the need for further shared e-scooter restrictions. For example, Kallio does not have parking restriction areas everywhere like the nearby city centre. Helsinki’s considerations to expand the parking restriction area in 2025 inspired the theme of this thesis. Methods used consist of a literature review, field study and data analysis. The literature review focuses on e.g., shared e-scooters’ role in urban mobility, restrictions in Helsinki and elsewhere and e-scooter’s risks to users. The field study focuses on finding incorrectly parked shared e-scooters and categorising them by amount, location and dangerousness. The field study concludes that incorrectly parked shared e-scooters were found nearly everywhere in the research area and especially in busy transit areas. While incorrectly parked shared e-scooters were found to be rarely parked in a dangerous manner to other road users, they were still the single most inconveniencing thing found on sidewalks. In addition, shared e-scooter parking spaces were found to not work as intended, because shared e-scooters were often parked outside them. Further restrictions on e-scooters could prove beneficial in reducing inconvenience to other road users and a different approach to parking should be considered. One possible solution could be the implementation of physical docking stations. The main conclusion is that while shared e-scooters seem to replace modes of transport which are already sustainable as well as safer than e-scooters, they have been adopted into usage by the public at least as a convenient and sustainable solution to first and last mile problems. Thus, finding the right balance between embracing the benefits of shared e-scooters while mitigating their drawbacks is important. - Autonkuljettajien informaatiotarpeet
Helsinki University of Technology | Master's thesis(1997) Penttinen, Merja