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BREDA, Netherlands, Sept. 22, 2026 — New research from Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas) suggests that light electric vehicles such as e-scooters and fatbikes can pull significant numbers of people out of cars — but only if cycling infrastructure and clear riding rules evolve alongside them. Released as European Mobility Week wraps up with Car-Free Day, the findings carry weight well beyond the Netherlands, offering a policy template for cities across Europe and North America now wrestling with the micromobility boom.
Few places show what cycling-first planning looks like at real scale. Roughly 28% of all trips in the country are made by bike — the highest share in Europe. The bicycle fleet literally outnumbers the population: 22 million bikes for 18 million residents. Behind those numbers sits a 153,000-kilometer (95,000-mile) network of cycle paths, bike highways and low-traffic links that has become a study subject for planners from Copenhagen to California. The model emerged half a century ago, when a wave of child traffic deaths forced Dutch cities to rethink street design, and it has kept evolving since. Several U.S. cities have already imported Dutch design manuals for protected intersections and separated lanes, and federal funding for active transportation is pushing that trend further.
The new evidence comes from LEVERAGE, a research project led by BUas with European partners. In a survey of nearly 2,000 residents, a quarter said they were seriously considering a compact LEV — an e-scooter, e-cargo bike or fatbike — in the near future. Three-quarters expect to drive less as a result. That is not a city-center phenomenon: interest was just as strong in suburbs and rural municipalities, where distances often stretch beyond comfortable pedal-bike range. That matters for decarbonization. Short car trips that shift to electric micromobility can cut emissions in transport, the sector that has proven hardest to clean up, while relieving congestion on commuter corridors.
The upside comes with friction. LEVs bring a wider spread of speeds and weights to paths once designed for a single vehicle type, and Dutch accident data shows cycling-related crashes creeping upward as e-bikes and fatbikes spread. BUas researchers wanted to understand how cyclists actually experience the mix. They equipped riders with eye-tracking glasses and skin-conductance sensors, then observed them in real traffic. The results: legal fatbikes and other LEVs draw significantly more visual attention than conventional bicycles. Riders track them, adjust position, calibrate distance. But that extra attention did not turn into measurable stress or a sense of danger — as long as LEV users behaved predictably and kept to legal speeds. The distinguishing variable, the team concluded, was not the machine itself but the way it was ridden.
The research also underlines that not all cycle paths are equal. Path width, speed-separation treatments and intersection design all changed how safe riders felt. Wide, physically separated paths absorbed the mix of speeds and masses comfortably; painted markings did little to ease discomfort. For planners working with tight budgets, the implication is clear: prioritize separation where speed differentials are greatest — at intersections, bridges and commuter corridors.
"It is not the vehicle itself that creates danger; it is how it's used," says Paul van de Coevering, professor of Urban Mobility Planning at BUas. Even participants who arrived with negative attitudes toward LEVs reported no unsafe encounters when they met riders who were calm and legal. Infrastructure mattered just as much: separated cycle paths consistently produced higher feelings of safety than painted lanes or shared streets. Physical design, in other words, does work that individual alertness cannot.
The policy conclusion cuts against the instinct, spreading across Europe, to ban new vehicle types outright. Paris voted to remove rental e-scooters in 2023, and several governments have debated reclassifying or restricting fatbikes. The BUas research points the other way. Enforcing behavioral standards — age limits, speed controls, predictable riding — was more effective in the study and drew more public support than banning specific vehicles. The Netherlands is already moving in that direction, with policymakers weighing minimum riding ages and speed caps rather than prohibitions. Combined with investment in well-designed, separated infrastructure, such rules can keep the Dutch cycling model safe as it absorbs a new generation of electric vehicles. Researchers add one caveat: the findings apply to legal machines; illegally modified, speed-unrestricted devices are an enforcement problem of their own.
For American readers, the most relevant number may not be the 28% bike share but the one-in-four willingness to consider a small electric vehicle. Scaled to U.S. suburbs — where a large share of car trips are under five miles — that interest could translate into millions of short journeys shifted off the road. Federal design guidance, including the Federal Highway Administration's Separated Bike Lane Planning and Design Guide, has long made the same case the BUas team reached: separation from fast traffic and consistency of speeds shape safety more than the type of vehicle involved. Cities such as Minneapolis and Austin have already begun importing Dutch intersection designs; the next step, the research suggests, is to write rules for e-scooters and e-bikes before streets are overwhelmed by them, rather than after. The Netherlands is running that experiment now, and its results will be closely watched in Washington and state capitals.
The Dutch cycling model was long dismissed as a fluke of flat land and cycling culture. BUas reframes it as an achievement of design and governance: infrastructure, rules and vehicle technology advancing in lockstep. The arrival of LEVs is the latest test. The evidence says the system can pass it — provided policymakers resist the easy reflex to ban, and focus instead on how people ride, where they ride, and how the street is built. That lesson, developed on Dutch cycle paths, is becoming a roadmap for any city trying to unlock the future of urban mobility.
Breda University of Applied Sciences is an internationally oriented university based in the Netherlands, offering programs in Built Environment, Logistics and Hospitality.
