The contribution of e-scooters services to urban transport resilience

A redundant transport network enhances the utility of transport services users by offering multiple alternative modes capable of supporting and substituting for each other when one becomes temporarily unavailable. The objective of this paper is to present empirical evidence of the role redundancy may play in e-scooter sharing services when transit services face temporary disruptions. To achieve this, we analyzed trip data from e-scooter sharing services in Turin, Italy, to assess the impact of seven transit strike events on both the frequency counts and the average length of e-scooter trips. The results indicate a substitution effect between transit and e-scooters during transit disruptions. This redundancy pattern follows a spatial distribution characterized by a distance-decay function from transit stops, resulting in a significant increase (+89%) in trips originating in the vicinity of transit stops during a strike event. This paper contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence of the e-scooter-to-transit redundancy and its spatial heterogeneity, further defining the complementary/competitive relationship between these two modes. Policymakers and planners can enhance the resilience of urban transport networks by considering dynamic fleet management that anticipates transit disruptions and failures while better accommodating the demand shock of e-scooter sharing services.