Ultralight last mile vehicles on public walkways for sustainable traffic chains

Foldable ultralight electric vehicles (E-ULV) with a range of 4-5 kilometers and a weight of 5-7 kilograms are a promising key component for future sustainable traffic chains in urban regions with mountainous topography. While E-Bikes are hard to use in the rush-hour of metropolitan public transport, these - actually not available and not legally usable - E-ULV are a real innovation for the ""last mile"". This paper presents electric drive add-on kits for foldable scooters that can be used on public walkways, train stations and subway platforms. The key innovation of these very light, slow and powerful foldable scooters is the adaptive speed limitation based on ultrasonic sensors, that limits the maximum velocity to 6 km/h on crowded walkways and permits a faster movement up to 10 km/h if the walkway is obstacle-free. The E-ULV had been tested legally in small fleets on public walkways in Stuttgart and Esslingen by special permission of the Ministry for Traffic and Infrastructure Baden-Württemberg. The modal split of the probands has been monitored by a specially designed Smartphone-App. These E-ULV turned out shift car kilometers to the public transport system effectively as well as they avoid parking lot search traffic.