SAN ANTONIO – ScooterLab, a multi-university research initiative helmed by professors from the University of Texas at San Antonio, is preparing to go wheels down with an additional fleet of electric scooters.
Currently, eight scooters are available as part of the study; however, researchers plan to expand the program with 20 scooters over the next three months.
The scooters are available to students and UTSA employees who agree to participate in ScooterLab’s study. Survey completion and documenting travel habits are parts of the study.
“We encourage ScooterLab participants to integrate the e-scooters into their everyday travel on longer-term loans, so students can use them in places that are safe and convenient for them,” said Dr. Greg Griffin, a professor of practice in UTSA’s School of Architecture and Planning and co-principal investigator on the project, in an email to KSAT.
While it exists as a mirco-mobility option for participating students, ScooterLab also functions as a research expenditure gathering data on ways to improve urban infrastructure, such as traffic patterns and road conditions.
“We aim to provide data which can be used for solving rider and pedestrian safety challenges, urban routing and infrastructure planning challenges, engineering and machine learning,” said Murtuza Jadliwala, an associate professor of computer science at UTSA and lead investigator on the ScooterLab project.
In the fall of 2019, a close call with an electric scooter rider on UTSA’s main campus prompted an idea for Jadliwala.
“When I saw all these scooters on campus, I realized they not only carry people, but can also carry sensors that can help us collect data, which is great for all these technological advances we want to make,” Jadliwala said in a June 2021 UTSA Today story.
The project began in 2020 with a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) funding a one-year pilot to create a research laboratory.
At its core, ScooterLab is meant to generate a testbed for potential research opportunities around micro-mobility.
Research studies from Texas A&M to Australia were already in the works in March 2023.
“We’ve already been contacted and (are) working with people as far away as Australia and as close by as Texas A&M who are interested in deploying research studies with this testbed,” Griffin said in an interview with KSAT last year.
Investigators on the project include other UTSA professors, a professor from the University of Oklahoma and students from both schools.
The project received $1.7 million in subsequent NSF funding to assist with further deployment efforts, according to a UTSA Today story.
Scooters were officially made available to students in September. A small batch of eight scooters were deployed in July, according to ScooterLab’s X page.
The investment in micro-mobility is especially pertinent downtown as UTSA looks to expand its presence in the immediate urban core.
Earlier this year, UTSA deployed its Little Runner, a six-seat electric bus for public use downtown, through a partnership with Centro.
“Students who take advantage of both the Little Runner and participate in a ScooterLab study have a range of options for mobility downtown without having to worry about the costs of driving or the inconvenience of parking—a win-win for the UTSA downtown community,” Griffin said in his email.
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