Hybrid life cycle sustainability assessment of shared e-scooters: utilization rate as a key driver of sustainability performance

Abstract

Purpose: Shared e-scooter services have emerged as transformative solutions in urban micro-mobility, offering sustainable, affordable, and accessible transportation options. This study evaluates the life cycle sustainability of shared e-scooters in comparison to conventional gasoline-powered vehicles, battery electric vehicles, and privately owned e-scooters, emphasizing utilization rate as a critical factor shaping environmental, social, and economic outcomes. Methods and data: A cradle-to-grave life cycle sustainability assessment was performed using a multi-regional input-output framework to evaluate the environmental, social, and economic impacts of shared e-scooters. Data were collected from a major service provider in Doha, Qatar, with the functional unit defined as passenger kilometers traveled. The assessment accounted for impacts across three phases, assessing 13 sustainability impact metrics. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis was conducted by individually perturbing key variables, quantifying their influence on overall life cycle impacts, and identifying the principal drivers for potential optimization. Results: The analysis identifies the manufacturing phase as the largest contributor to environmental impacts throughout the life cycle, accounting for an average of 27% of the total impacts. Our findings also indicate that shared e-scooters with utilization rates below 11% (case study's utilization rate) produce higher carbon emissions per kilometer than private battery electric vehicles. Additionally, operational activities, such as redistribution and collection, exacerbate the environmental burdens, making personal e-scooters a more sustainable alternative than shared e-scooters when usage levels are comparable. Conclusions: This study provides a comprehensive life cycle sustainability perspective on shared e-scooter systems, revealing that their overall sustainability depends not only on operational efficiency but critically on design, energy sourcing, and local deployment strategies. We find that upstream processes, particularly manufacturing and battery production, dominate environmental impacts, while charging drives resource depletion, especially in water-scarce regions. Operational activities introduce trade-offs that can offset shared mobility's benefits if not well managed. Socially, shared e-scooters offer improved health outcomes and employment potential, but most socioeconomic gains are realized outside the regions where the services are used, raising questions about local value capture. Economically, lifecycle costs are competitive only under sufficient utilization, which is strongly influenced by user behavior, spatial planning, and regulatory support.