Regularization of Micro-mobility Modes in an Emerging Economy: A Case of India

The rise in growing traffic congestion, long urban commute durations, and lack of last and first-mile connectivity to public transport has led to citizens scouting for alternative modes to reach their desired destinations in the most economic, convenient, and time-saving manner. The concept of micro-mobility fits in these conditions to provide hassle-free, affordable, and easy-to-use solutions for the citizens across all demographics. Micro-mobility has emerged as a popular discourse in the world to address transportation and climate-change-related urban issues and challenges. While in other parts of the globe, micro-mobility is booming, in India, it is still in the early years of introducing micro-mobility. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has made the users explore these options of micro-mobility especially the young as a group as the risk of contracting the coronavirus is lower through micro-mobility. This paper is an attempt to critically review the existing operational characteristics of micro-mobility modes and also analyze the user’s opinion towards this new concept of micro-mobility. This paper also tested various regularizing strategies to control the measures ranging from limiting the circulation speed, limiting the scale of operations, limiting the operation areas, and restricting it completely from a few public spaces to provide better safe conditions to the users as well as promote to have a better regulation process of micro-mobility in Indian cities.