During her studies, Karly Nygaard-Petersen was the recipient of a Doctoral Entrance Award of $10,000 per year for each of the first two years and says it was life-changing.

“For me, it was a big deal,” she says. “It was the difference between doing this or not.

“The number one consideration was financial. It was not, ‘Can I do this? Do I have the right ideas. Do I have what it takes?’ It was, ‘Do I have the means to be able to do it?’”

With the funding, Nygaard-Peterson was able to pursue her Doctor of Business Administration and is now an associate faculty member at RRU and 2025 Kelly Outstanding New Teacher award co-recipient.

Her doctoral thesis research focused on escooter adoption to support municipalities and operators of bike and scooter share programs to better understand consumer behaviours and decisions related to mobility. Her goal was to better integrate shared escooters into transportation systems across North America.

In conducting her research — which included interviewing escooter users and others, and even riding with them — “I kept hearing people say things like, ‘That was so much fun. I feel like a kid again.’”

In fact, 100 per cent of study participants ranked fun as an important part of their escooter experience, suggesting fun as a factor in consumer adoption should be taken more seriously.

“I found it interesting that fun was unanimous among participants when many other aspects of the experience were mixed,” she says, adding that “seemed very atypical for how people would typically describe getting around.”

Nygaard-Petersen, who previously earned a Master of Business Administration at RRU, enjoys a unique perspective on the topic among students and researchers from her role as British Columbia Automobile Association (BCAA) senior marketing manager for Evo Car Share and automotive service centres. That work has taken her to international events such as the Micromobility America and Micromobility Europe, where experts shared their own experiences supporting her doctoral findings.

She says that while her research focuses on and promotes shared micromobility services, it also notes something else: Propelled by the fun and ease of riding such escooters for the first time, many users may soon buy their own.

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