Transport planning has a fundamental problem: it's designed for commuters, not for families. A parent carrying groceries, a child, and a week's shopping can't board a bus. They drive instead. This gap, the distance between home and the transit station, the inability to carry cargo, isn't a minor inconvenience. It's a systemic planning failure.
Micromobility solves this. Not as a replacement for public transport. As the connector that makes public transport viable in the first place.
Recent research shows e-cargo bikes are displacing family car trips in European cities. Parents are using them for school runs, grocery shopping, moving goods. The data is striking: in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, cargo bikes are handling trips that would previously require a car. These aren't enthusiasts. These are ordinary families making rational choices based on what's practical.
The implication for transport planners is significant. A transport network without micromobility connectivity is leaving money on the table, both literally (fewer riders, lower revenue), and strategically (failing to shift mode share away from private vehicles).
The missing piece isn't the bus or the train. It's the bike, the scooter, the cargo vehicle that bridges the gap between your front door and the station.
Cities integrating micromobility into formal transport planning; zoning for parking, building infrastructure, treating it as a network component rather than a novelty, are seeing measurable shifts in ridership and mode share.
The question isn't whether to include micromobility. It's whether you can afford not to.
