Micromobility

A Blueprint for Micromobility

Many jurisdictions are wrestling with how to get the most out of micromobility (electric bicycles, electric scooters, mopeds, and other small, powered devices). The Massachusetts Department of Transportation has recently released a special commission report about what to do.

Key Takeaways

• Increasing the use of micromobility for short trips can reduce congestion and emissions statewide, while delivering meaningful benefits.
• Recommendations aim to enhance road and pathway safety while improving accessibility and affordability for everyone.
• Micromobility should be proactively integrated into the Commonwealth’s transportation system, rather than managed through reactive and fragmented regulations.

Recommendations:

1. The legislature should add the necessary legal definitions to Massachusetts General Law and update all existing relevant definitions.
2. Implement a Speed-Based Classification Schema.
3. The legislature should establish a time-limited working group with funding to design a statewide Micro ID to enable law enforcement to identify devices.
4. The Massachusetts State Police Academy and the Massachusetts Police Training Committee should develop and deliver training for law enforcement officers.
5. Amend state law to enable the inclusion of micromobility within MassDOT’s crash data system.
6. Establish a default maximum speed of 20 MPH on shared-use paths.
7. Deliver an educational campaign to inform micromobility users of the rules.
8. Authorize automated enforcement of infractions that impact vulnerable users, such as speeding, improper use of bus and bike lanes, and red-light running.
9. Include model micromobility traffic control regulations and prohibitions on obstructing bicycle lanes that cities and towns can adopt.
10. Develop context-sensitive design guidance for state and municipal trails and shared use paths.
11. Adopt and implement a micromobility integration plan that includes:
    • Providing secure micromobility parking.
    • Designating micromobility-friendly rail cars, subway cars, and buses
    • Exploring opportunities for fare integration and/or discounts with micromobility providers and
    • Evaluating the potential for charging infrastructure.
    • Increase appropriations to assist municipalities in expanding their infrastructure networks.
    • Establish a reliable and sustainable funding mechanism to support publicly owned, docked micromobility share systems.
    • Funding More E-bike Subsidies.
    • Allocate funds for MassDOT to commission a study from an academic partner to understand how micromobility is used in commercial settings.
    • Work with an academic partner to study the hierarchy of responsibility in a crash and the potential effects of introducing a “Presumed Liability” law.

Comment

This report takes a very sensible approach to micromobility. It recognises the challenges that micromobility is introducing. However, rather than the knee-jerk reactions some jurisdictions are making, it recognises the potential of micromobility and seeks to integrate it successfully into the transport system to reap benefits.

What Next?

Do some of these recommendations make sense in your jurisdiction in how you handle micromobility?

Road Safety

Global Road Safety: Progress Stalls as 2030 Target Slips Out of Reach

The International Transport Forum (ITF) has published its report on road safety. It presents provisional figures for the first half of 2025, along with a detailed review of road safety trends in 2024 and an assessment of progress made over the past decade across 69 countries.

Key Takeaways

• Except for seven countries, most countries (28) are not currently on track to meet the United Nations target of halving road deaths and serious injuries by 2030.
• Accelerated implementation of road safety strategies and action plans is required.
• Road deaths fell by 5% compared with the same period in 2024, according to preliminary data for the first half of 2025 covering 31 countries. This overall improvement is driven by the United States, where road deaths declined by 8%.
• Road mortality rates in 2024 varied significantly among IRTAD countries, ranging from 1.6 to 15.4 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants. Norway recorded the lowest rate at 1.6, maintaining its position as the top‑performing country.
• Over the last decade (2014–2024), road traffic deaths across the 35 countries with validated data increased by 1.5%. However, this result is heavily influenced by the United States: excluding the United States, road deaths across the remaining countries declined by 11.8%.
• On average, 2024 traffic levels match those of the pre-COVID period.
• Fatalities declined across nearly all user categories, with the strongest decrease among cyclists, whose fatalities fell by 5.4%.
• Rural roads claim more lives than urban roads and motorways combined.
• Pedestrians killed in a collision with a car are the largest group of fatalities in multi‑party collisions, accounting for 10.5% of all fatalities.

Comment

Most countries have made steady progress on road safety in the past decade. One concern I have is whether the low-hanging fruit have now been picked and we will see a slowing down of progress in the years ahead.

The most effective strategies, such as lower speed limits, speed camera enforcement and speed delimiters, are often unpopular, at least at first. Indeed, there are several countries where speeds of one sort or another are being increased.

Part of what I hope for the Transport Reform Network is that we will help remove the barriers to more effective road safety policies.

What Next?

Are the road safety measures you are putting in place adequate to meet your road safety targets?

Roads

Ten Technologies, Four Priorities, One Big Caveat

I find that most of the time, transport reports from the big consultancies lack a certain something to make the newsletter. However, this McKinsey article on ten smart road technologies was a good overview.

Key Takeaways

Operators consistently prioritize four outcomes over all others:

1. Safety: Reducing incidents and their severity
2. Operational efficiency: Enabling network fluidity, even under pressure
3. Maintenance and construction: Achieving more with less
4. Revenue optimization: Ensuring sustainable funding

Technologies:

• Smart-parking and rest area management - only a small number of operators have implemented smart-parking solutions for rest areas.
• Integrated traffic management systems (ITMS) - these are widely deployed. Most operators consolidate inputs from sensors, cameras, and weather systems, enabling proactive management across major corridors and metropolitan areas.
• Robotics and automation: Robots capable of line marking, vegetation control, and tunnel cleaning are beginning to appear, but mostly remain at the pilot stage.
• Dynamic tolling and congestion pricing - Most operators experiment with dynamic pricing only on specific managed lanes or high-demand corridors.
• Capital expenditure planning and prioritization: Few operators use integrated digital tools to prioritize investments across their thousands of assets.
• Predictive maintenance: only a few operators have predictive models that can accurately forecast deterioration.
• Toll fraud detection and revenue assurance - Most operators still rely on manual audits, batch reconciliations, or sample-based checks to detect leakage.
• Digital twins and ‘sensorized’ assets - Real-time, network-wide digital twins are still in early development.
• Remote inspection and monitoring - Drones, lidar, and high-resolution imaging can reduce the need for lane closures, enabling safer and more frequent inspections. Most remote deployments are project-oriented rather than standardized across an entire network.
• Incident detection and video analytics - Many tunnels today use automated detection. Some operators have also deployed analytics along open-road segments.
• Four practical moves can help road operators accelerate impact:

1. Anchor the tech agenda to core priorities
2. Scale proven technologies first
3. Strengthen the organization’s data spine
4. Prepare for future infrastructure demands, e.g. AVs, EV charging and resilience.

Comment

There is a risk that technology investments for roads disproportionately benefit cars at the expense of other modes. Just because we have the technology to do something does not mean it should be done when there are better investments to be made, like improving active and public transport, including in the technology space.

What Next?

Are you investing the right level of money in technology for roads, or is it taking money away from more beneficial transport system-level investments?

Quick Adventures in Transport Wonderland

Here is what else I came across this week:

• ​Identifying circumstances in which the introduction of distance-based, cordon-based, and congestion-free lane road user charge regimes garner support​
• ​7 Reasons Bike Lanes and Sidewalks Are Good for Drivers​
• ​Forty years on the fast track: Adelaide’s O-Bahn turns 40​

Tool

Global Public Transit Index

​This index allows you to track and compare public transport on-time performance.

Before You Go:

Reminder: The Transport Reform Network is now setting up its working groups. You can register an interest here.