Comparing Austin’s micromobility trips to some other cities.

I’ve been tracking Austin’s micromobility (dockless scooters, bicycles) trips since the beginning of the pandemic back in April 2020. The original source of this data has since gone a little stale, but need not worry because we have a new source of data. The new data is sourced from the RideReport Open Data Portal

They also are tracking a dozen other cities, so I’ve made a script to go ahead and compare Austin to other cities.

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A few fun facts about the data:

• Atlanta has a restriction that does not allow devices to be rented between 9PM and 4AM.

• Melbourne, Australia and Austin have the largest share of trips between Midnight and 4AM.

• Newark has a pretty clear 8AM and 4PM peaks, probably due to people riding to transit. It also has larger share of weekday trips than any other city. Saturday is the most popular day, except for Newark where Friday is most popular.

• Austin’s trips about double from February to June, Denver’s trips about quadruple.

• Denver only has 15% fewer trips during February than Austin but has average snowfall of 9 inches and an average low temperature of 20 degrees (Austin 0.2 inches, 45.8 degrees).

• Santa Monica, CA has the least variance in monthly scooter trips, probably because the weather is always good. Newark is second least.

• Melbourne, Australia has the most variance in monthly scooter trips, but that was likely caused by a pretty significant expansion of the program in February. Denver is the second most.

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If you’d like to access the data, I’ve published it on Google Sheets, feel free to mess around with it!

Charlie