Nudging Bolt customers to use an e-scooter, rather than ride-hailing
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(Image credit: Bolt)
(Image credit: Bolt)
Bolt, the European scooter operator, and the Institute of Transport Economics (TØI), have shown that in-app encouragement will cause up to 60-percent of users to shift from ride-hailing to scooters for shorter trips.
The trial shows a shift in mobility habits was observed for long-term app usage as well. In Oslo and Lisbon, users performed additional scooter searches for similar trips after the initial encouragement was performed in-app.
During the study last year, randomly selected groups of Bolt customers from 10 European cities received in-app encouragement to switch from ride-hailing to a scooter for trips shorter than three kilometers. Groups actively encouraged were compared to groups that didn’t receive the encouragement.
(Image credit: Bolt)
(Image credit: Bolt)
According to the final results, up to 60-percent of users on average shifted from a ride-hail to a scooter for short trips if the scooter was 300 meters away or closer.
Bolt claims that the implications of the findings are considerable. In Europe, most car trips are less than five kilometres long, and around 25-percent of Bolt car-hailing trips globally are shorter than three kilometres.
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According to Bolt’s data, an electric scooter’s CO2 emissions are on average three times lower than a car’s CO2 emissions.
The most successful results were seen in cities where there is a high availability of shared scooters. In Lisbon, for example, in-app encouragement led to a 210-percent increase of users opting for an e-scooter.
Significant results were also observed in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Oslo, Krakow, and Madrid.
Bolt and the Institute of Transport Economics will continue to work together on a modal shift program and I hope that this will lead to the laws being changed in the UK and privately owned electric scooters made legal.
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