The new article ‘Real-world and traffic-adjusted physical activity levels of micromobility modes in Barcelona’, published by Alexandra Bretones in the journal Transport & Health, evaluates the level of physical activity associated with the use of different micromobility modes in Barcelona.
The study aims to provide a more precise understanding of the issue, providing valuable information on the latent health benefits in terms of physical activity of using micromobility modes for transportation, using GPS and accelerometer data from 502 trips. The findings indicate that conventional and electric shared bicycles are linked to higher values of Metabolic Task Equivalents (MET) compared to electric scooters. This analysis also indicates that one minute of riding a conventional bicycle is associated with 28% more physical activity than one minute of riding an electric scooter. Furthermore, electric scooter trips are characterized by shorter distances and intermittent peaks of physical activity, contrasting with the more uniform distribution observed in bicycle trips. These findings underscore the importance of recognizing conventional and electric bicycles as the main active modes of micromobility, despite the growing popularity of electric scooters worldwide.
Photography: Edu Bayer
