For the second time, the Center for Empirical Research (ZEF) at DHBW Stuttgart held its research colloquium as an online event. With over 100 participants from business, science, politics and interested members of the public, the event was a complete success.
The central research topic this year was micromobility. The focus of the research was on micromobility within institutions. For this purpose, the DHBW’s internal offer “DHBW Drive” – a station-based and free e-scooter offer for employees and students of the DHBW Stuttgart – was examined as well as the general assessment of such internal solutions.
The event was rounded off by exciting practical presentations by Felix Vreden, Co-Founder Steereon (product presentation of novel micromobility offer “foldable e-scooters”) and Sebastian Hofer, Podcast Host “freifahrt” (current trend developments in the field of micromobility).
In the period from December 2020 to January 2021, the data collection for the DHBW Drive project took place, which was developed and evaluated by students of the Business Administration-Industrial Service Management course under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Marc Kuhn. The research colloquium now offered students Laura Baron, Alina Neuhold, Fabian Barbera, Vincent Heller, Frederik Hinderer, Nico Hofmann and Julian Kehl a platform to present and reflect on the results.
The average travel time of 22 minutes and mean travel distance of 3.7 kilometers indicate that the e-scooters are not only used for short distances. In addition, there is a positive relationship between intention to use and attachment to the organization that provides the e-scooters. This point is significant because privacy concerns have a negative effect on trust, which in turn has a positive effect on intention to use. All in all, the easier the service is to use, the higher the personally expected benefit and the intention to use it.
In practice, it is therefore advisable to introduce users to the mobility service in a targeted manner, to take data protection concerns seriously, and to advertise the micromobility service in a targeted manner as part of personnel marketing.
More than 1,400 registered users – about 1,000 of them students – and more than 9,000 kilometers driven despite the pandemic have not only provided many insights, but also produced another very pleasing result: The DHBW Drive project will be extended until February 2022.
If interested, the associated research volume can be requested via zef@dhbw-stuttgart.de.
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