Session
WE.1.D || Sustainability of Business Models and Innovations
Authors
Finke, Sebastian; Schelte, Nora; Severengiz, Semih; Kähler, Ferdinand
Abstract
The rapid spread of shared micromobility services raises questions about their ecological impacts. Previous Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) show that the ecological impacts of shared mobility services vary significantly depending on the sharing mode (free-float vs. station based), the charging infrastructure and the corresponding operating mode. Even though e-scooters could mitigate environmental issues of urban transportation due to their low energy consumption, studies show that service trips for charging and relocation and non-swappable batteries have overall negative environmental impacts. To identify key factors for a environmentally friendly e-scooter sharing infrastructure and operating mode, a comparative LCA is carried out in this study. A method is developed considering a holistic product service system of e-scooter sharing including the whole life cycle to cover all environmentally relevant aspects of the sharing operation. In different scenarios, electric stand-up scooters and electric moped scooters are compared for different operational modes. These operational modes include free-float, station-based and hybrid sharing. Furthermore, the charging methods and the underlying charging infrastructure with battery swapping stations are varied. Amongst other things, the results show that greenhouse gas emissions are the lowest for two scenarios: A free-float sharing mode where batteries are swapped using an electric cargo bike and a hybrid sharing mode using self-service battery swapping stations. These findings allow the design of sustainable product-service systems regarding the operation mode and the charging infrastructure of micromobility sharing services.