HEaLth iMpact of E-bikes and e-scooTers (HELMET)

Physical activity is important for physical and mental health. Walking or cycling between places is one way to be physically active. E-bikes are pedal bikes which have a battery to make cycling easier, especially on hills, whilst still maintaining a level of physical activity. Using e-bikes could be a good option to increase physical activity, but we need more scientific evidence. E-scooters run on batteries, meaning you don't have to push them. E-scooters may decrease physical activity if people use them instead of walking or cycling. The government has not yet decided whether to legalise the private use of e-scooters. The government has been testing e-scooter share hire schemes in some parts of the UK since 2020. People can pay to use them for trips within each of these areas. While certain types of e-bikes are currently legal in the UK, they can be expensive to buy and tricky to store safely at home. Being able to pay to use them only when they are needed may encourage greater use. We don't know whether people's travel choices change when e-bike and e-scooter share hire schemes are available. For example, do people who would have driven before or taken a bus, choose to take an e-bike or e-scooter instead? Do people who would have walked before, choose to take an e-scooter instead? This would impact on physical activity levels. We don't know how much physical activity you get from using e-scooters. We also do not know the impact of e-bike and e-scooter schemes on the environment and if they reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions, which affects climate change. E-bike and e-scooter share hire schemes may increase or decrease road accidents. Having this information would enable local and national governments to make better choices. Information about value for money could also help them to decide whether to encourage e-bike and e-scooter use. Bristol added e-bikes to their e-scooter share hire scheme in the autumn of 2023. At the same time Leeds introduced an e-bike only share hire scheme. We conducted a survey of residents in Bristol and Leeds during the summer of 2023, to understand if these hire schemes changed how active people were or how they travelled. We asked residents of Bradford and Sheffield the same questions so we could compare to cities without these share hire schemes. We repeated the survey in summer 2024. This will allow us to compare the answers and see if the hire schemes changed how active people were or how they travelled. We will also ask people how they feel about such share hire schemes. We will check how much activity people get when using a share hire scheme e-scooter. We will look at whether the number of accidents change when these share hire schemes start or stop. We will assess the costs and benefits, and their environmental impact. Finally, we plan to work with a range of groups to create guidelines to help councils and the government make decisions on how to promote e-bikes and e-scooters in the future. We have worked with members of the public and local Councils to design this study. Members of the public and local authority-based colleagues' have been involved in all parts of the project. We plan to continue working with these groups. This will help project findings to be as useful as possible to the public and to policy makers.