Taşkın Dirsehan publishes article in Travel Behaviour and Society

Dr. Taşkın Dirsehan is Full Professor of Marketing at Marmara University in Istanbul. Between September 2021 and July 2021, Taşkın joined the Centre for BOLD Cities as a visiting researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam. During this period, he researched the acceptance of smart city technologies, in particular e-scooters. This research has recently been published in "Travel Behavior and Society". 

Abstract: 
E-scooters, a burgeoning form of micromobility, are revolutionizing urban transportation systems globally, particularly in the post-pandemic world. The surge in e-scooter adoption introduces novel regulatory challenges for local authorities. Numerous recent studies cater to these policy needs by exploring e-scooter use. However, scant attention has been paid to non-users’ perspectives, which is crucial to understand comprehensively the effect of e-scooters on urban environments. Issues such as accidents, parking problems, and others, which concern city-dwellers, require close attention. To address this research gap, we used a Q-methodology study to examine the diverse views among residents of the Netherlands. Twenty-one respondents ranked 34 statements pertaining to their disincentives to e-scooter use and elucidated their rankings in a follow-up survey. The study unearthed three distinct viewpoints: (1) “environmentalists” deem e-scooters as environmentally unfriendly, (2) “materialist” exhibit a preference for personal vehicle ownership over shared transport, and (3) “socializers” perceive e-scooters as unsuitable for larger groups. These findings set the stage for potential research directions and underline the importance of incorporating diverse public perceptions in micromobility policymaking.

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