E-scooter Driving Postures and Velocities Retrieved from Volunteer Tests using Motion Capturing and Traffic Observations

The number of injured e-scooter riders has drastically increased during the last years. Knowledge of the injury mechanisms is still limited. The aim of this study was to determine typical driving postures and velocity profiles for e-scooter riders to be used in simulations with Human Body Models.
Volunteer tests were carried out with 16 males and 15 females. First, the volunteers drove with the e-scooters along a predefined route to derive average driving speeds using a camera-based traffic observation system. Furthermore, a 3D motion-capturing system was used to measure the driving poses of the volunteers in a lab environment.
At the outdoor route, average driving speeds of up to 25 km/h for males and 22.4 km/h for females were observed. Nine different characteristic poses were identified and quantitatively characterised. The most common position for both sexes was the right foot positioned in front while the left foot is behind and slightly bent. High variation between volunteers and between female and male volunteers have been observed.
For future investigations with Human Body Models, representative boundary conditions and initial postures have been derived within the current study.