Some two years ago, a report, “Small Vehicles, Big Impact: Micromobility’s Value for Cities and Real Estate”, was released by an American company, Urban Land Institute, making a case for real estate professionals to support micromobility in urban environments. Diana Schoder, the report’s primary author, suggests that "this emerging form of mobility has the potential to create value for real estate developers and benefit property owners.”
So, what is micromobility, and why should our local property stakeholders take note?
The word ‘micromobility’ was coined by an industry analyst, Horace Dediu, in 2019. He explains that in the same way that computers were shrunk to ‘something that was 'desktop’ - as in microcomputing - in the 70s, his observation of shrinking personal transportation to small vehicles inspired the need for terminology. However, defining what it is precisely, he says, ‘is a challenge … but for the layperson, micromoboility is urban freedom; it’s about being able to get around in cities, either in a very accessible or a very low-cost manner.
Micromobility is primarily focused on transportation over short distances provided by lightweight and usually single-person vehicles, such as bicycles, e-scooters, and e-bikes, which have a rechargeable (electric) motor that aids pedalling or propulsion. These bikes are very common in the US and Europe, especially in Germany, where the estimation is that some 20% of households have an e-bike.
E-bikes and e-scooters piggyback on bicycle infrastructure that already exists in the big cities, although they are not necessarily restricted from being used on roads, depending on regulation. Why they are growing in popularity is the endorsement by global local governments that wish to either curb or completely eliminate the number of cars on their city roads and beneficially reduce carbon emissions.
Another great aspect of micromobility is that they are tech-driven and can be rented from specific hubs after buying credit via a 30-second downloadable App on a smartphone. An App is comprehensive and can be used anywhere in the world where hubs are located; it records geolocation coordinates, how the e-bike and e-scooter are operated, and offers incentives and provides information about local points of interest, including popular eateries and coffee shops. The uptake by tourists is growing, but so too is the use by local business people.
This is the system used by pioneering SA company Electric Life Group, whose CEO Stefan van der Sandt, and Roland Postma, Head of Change of one of the group’s subsidiaries, Electric Life Rides, have introduced in Cape Town and other SA holiday destinations, as well as some global cities. They speak passionately about micromobility, its environmental and sustainability attributes, and how it will enhance city real estate values.
‘It took us some six years to acquire the global licences we needed to bring the concept to Africa, and in being the first to do so, means, in essence, we are the custodians of micromobility on the continent,” says van der Sandt. It’s not an easy role to play, however, because the Africa/SA environment cannot be compared to the rest of the world for a number of challenging reasons.
‘Firstly, we don’t have safe bicycle infrastructure comparable to Europe, so e-scooters have to operate either on cycling lanes with no barriers that can be blocked by cars, or users have to mix in with traffic, which makes it very unsafe. Secondly, we also have to engage intensely with municipalities because regulation has yet to be defined, which we are helping to drive.’
Regardless, Electric Life Group is pushing on, engaging with local decision-makers like the City of Cape Town, hoping that the SA model sets the bar for legislative change. In the meantime, confirms Postman, the company is “self-policing through the smart tech, which makes users accountable in terms of, among other imperatives, speed parameters and zones used, where they pick up and drop off the rented e-scooter, and the age of users, that being a minimum of 18 years of age.”
Currently, hubs are housed by arrangement with B2B real estate, malls and hotels, which receive a small percentage of rental. Users can collect from these hubs and drop them at any other designated point. Apart from cities like Cape Town, there are hubs in game parks in Gauteng and popular coastal towns like Umhlanga and St Lucia, Kosi Bay and Langebaan.
“Why towns and hosts like this are keen to support micromobility is the ability to control congestion on the roads, support and incubate public transportation, and the carbon emissions that are saved. Emissions from one scooter are the equivalent of 4,5 vehicles,” says van der Sandt.
Postma adds there are also proven personal health benefits for the users, such as physical and mental improvements from being outdoors. “This is not just catalytic for tourism, but also for real estate in the future.
“If cities, and real estate developments, are designed to account for infrastructure that includes electric micromobility, the broader economy will improve. We are engaging with developers and having conversations about micromobility in the work-play-live environments. We have a vision that micromobility could be the norm in how we better use our land spaces from the bottom up.”
There is no doubt that there is value in micromobiliity for the real estate industry. In the Small Vehicles, Big Impact report, there is mention of the low-carbon benefits, the radius people can travel without a car, preserving air quality, linkages between people and their jobs, especially in time-saving, and ultimately the shaping of more liveable and improved city life.
Real estate professionals will be depended on to support these values and could even be hosts to on-site docking and e-scooter charging stations, further enhancing their marketing opportunities. They will be seen to be advancing city sustainability goals, particularly if they put their weight behind the development of city policies around micromobility.
Postma adds that key to this is developers and real estate agents engaging with the city to say they want cycling lanes that have barriers and are connected, which will mean “future developments can have more space for apartment units instead of parking and the ground floorplan can be activated through mixed-use developments such as the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town.” This is an economic argument, more than anything else, he says.
“As micromobility grows, so too will real estate become more valuable,” suggests van der Sandt and Postma, “especially student rental properties, given that young people are proving to be a huge market in support of e-transport systems.
“Our goal is to reach 10-million users, which is why we are introducing 10 000 vehicles into SADC in 2023. To achieve this, we need support, particularly from real estate, in our efforts with the government to buy into micromobility and safe cycling lanes. We need to make some noise together so that this form of transport, with its myriad benefits, will become a catalyst of transportation change in our cities,” says the duo.
Writer : Kerry Dimmer
