Exploring the determinants of shared e-scooters acceptance: A case study of Chinese college students

Shared electric scooters (shared e-scooters) have emerged as a promising green transportation mode, demonstrating significant advantages in mitigating urban environmental pressure and alleviating traffic congestion due to their electric-driven nature and zero-emission characteristics. Despite the rapid market development, the adoption of shared e-scooters in China remains unsatisfactory. Public acceptance among Chinese college students, who constitute a major part of the youth population, is a crucial factor determining the popularity of shared e-scooters. In light of the above, this study extends the original Technology Acceptance Model by introducing four additional psychological latent variables (i.e., subjective norms, personal innovativeness, perceived risk, and trust) to develop a comprehensive model to analyze acceptance of shared e-scooters and its influencing factors among Chinese college students. The proposed model was tested using data from an online survey of 428 college students, which collected their attitudes toward shared e-scooters. The calibrated model explains 78.2% of the variance in behavioral intention in the data, exhibiting superior explanatory power. Results reveal that subjective norms (0.823), attitude (0.285), personal innovativeness (0.28), perceived usefulness (0.148), and trust (0.121) have positive impacts on the students’ intention to use shared e-scooters, while perceived risk (-0.129) exhibits a negative influence. These results provide valuable insights into how key factors influence the acceptance of shared e-scooters among Chinese college students. Practical implications are discussed in the context of how relevant enterprises and government departments can formulate effective promotional strategies to encourage the widespread adoption of shared e-scooters in China.