With the rise of ride-share programs, more sustainable options such as scooter sharing have picked up speed.
Bird, Razor and Spin are the major players in the field of scooter sharing in the Valley. With an average speed of 15 mph and only a $1 cost to unlock the scooter, scooter sharing is popular among college students.
“Hasn’t everyone [ridden one]?” Arizona State University student Jaden Greenberg asked.
Commonly used in major cities and universities, e-scooters are becoming the new norm.
A pilot program for the scooters was set up for the City of Phoenix in September 2019, and has been extended to March 2022. This pilot is to test the practicality of electric scooters as a mobility option. According to the DTPHX website, the geographical boundary for the pilot program covers “Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue, from McDowell Road to Buckeye Road, with a triangular section to the west extending between Roosevelt Street and Grand Avenue to 15th Avenue.”
“I really like the efficiency of it,” said Shayla Tran, another ASU student. Data collected from DTPHX found that in the first three months of the program, “an average of 4,435 trips were completed each week with scooters clocking more than 72,000 miles.”
With the rising popularity in this form of transportation, the question stands: Which scooter is the most eco-friendly?
Bird
First founded in 2017, Bird has many accomplishments in the four years it has been in operation. Bird is located at over 30 universities in the United States and over 85 cities worldwide, according to its website. It was declared the first micro-mobility signatory of the United Nations Global Compact in 2020 after its e-scooter services were 100% carbon neutral. It is the only company out of the three in the Valley to receive this award.
It has accomplished this by avoiding emissions in the first place and reducing them where emission usage is unavoidable. The Bird website states that the company “uses e-vans and cargo bikes to pick up and redistribute [scooters],” they “reduce carbon intensive transport for employees,” and “repurpose or recycle remaining [scooter] parts.”
A life cycle analysis of Bird scooters conducted by Bird with the help of CEA Consulting and an independent consultant from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that a Bird electric scooter’s carbon emissions per passenger mile are 82% lower than a ride-share vehicle such as Uber or Lyft. Traveling 91 miles on a Bird e-scooter emits the same amount of carbon dioxide as burning one gallon of gas, according to this analysis.
Spin
Also established in 2017, Spin is a part of the Ford mobility sector at Ford Motor Company. Located in over 70 cities and campuses around the world, Spin wants to be carbon negative by 2025, according to its website. This means Spin must remove more emissions than it produces.
To become carbon negative, Spin will use “electrified operations, renewable power, lower manufacturing impacts, and aggressive mode shift[s] away from private automobiles,” according to its website.
In a study conducted by Spin and researchers at the Materials Research Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it was found that a car carrying one passenger would emit six times as much carbon dioxide as a Spin scooter.
However, this wasn’t always the case. Several years ago North Carolina State University and other institutions found that e-scooters were not as sustainable as they claimed to be because of short vehicle lifespans and operations that relied on gas-guzzling vans. Spin has since adapted, using “swappable batteries [for] a longer lifespan of up to five years,” and transitioning to “100% plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles.”
Razor
Razor is the oldest of the three companies, originally launching its electric scooter in 2003. For almost two decades, the name Razor has been synonymous with scooters, electric or not.
Despite the brand’s long withstanding history, Razor’s statistics are the hardest to find. The Razor website claims to have “shared analytics” but upon further research, they only share their analytics with city officials. Both Bird and Razor require riders to be 18 years or older, but Razor also requires that riders have a driver’s license.
“It’s just so much more of a hassle,” Tran says. “I prefer Spin just because it’s everywhere.” Spin and Razor are the two scooters most commonly found on the downtown Phoenix ASU campus.
Greenberg says that he favors Bird, mainly seen on Tempe’s campus, because of the sleek design. No matter which scooter fits your preference, overall, they are more environmentally friendly than other modes of transportation.
Contact the reporter dmtanne1@asu.edu.
