Human Factors and Vulnerable Road User Safety in the Era of Emerging Mobility: Powered Two-Wheelers, Micromobility, and Gig-Economy Riders

Road traffic injuries remain a leading cause of death and disability worldwide, and the burden falls disproportionately on vulnerable road users — pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and other unprotected users. Two parallel shifts are reshaping this picture. First, the global rise of app-based food and parcel delivery has produced a fast-growing workforce of platform-mediated riders whose working conditions, exposure, and risk profile differ sharply from traditional commercial drivers. Second, the rapid uptake of e-bikes, e-scooters, and other powered micromobility devices has introduced new user populations, vehicle dynamics, and traffic-conflict patterns that existing safety frameworks were not designed for. Despite these shifts, transportation safety research remains dominated by four-wheeled vehicles and fixed-shift driving contexts, leaving a clear evidence gap on the human factors that determine crash risk for these emerging populations.This Research Topic places the human — rider, pedestrian, cyclist, courier — at the centre of transportation safety research. It aims to advance understanding of how behaviour, exposure, working conditions, and policy interact to shape crash risk for powered two-wheeler users, micromobility users, and gig-economy delivery workers, and to identify interventions that measurably reduce harm. Three priority questions guide the collection. How do platform incentives, time pressure, and labour conditions translate into observable on-road behaviour and injury outcomes for delivery riders? What behavioural, training, and policy interventions are effective for emerging two-wheeler and micromobility populations, particularly in low- and middle-income contexts? How can naturalistic data, telematics, simulator experiments, and crash-severity modelling be combined to produce evidence that policymakers, employers, and platform operators can act on? Contributions are welcomed from transportation engineering, traffic psychology, injury epidemiology, labour studies, and human factors.We invite original research, systematic reviews, methods papers, brief research reports, and policy perspectives addressing one or more of: rider behaviour and risk perception for motorcycles, mopeds, e-bikes, and e-scooters; gig-economy courier safety, working conditions, and platform design; crash frequency and injury severity modelling for vulnerable road user populations; naturalistic riding, cycling, and walking studies; near-crash and surrogate safety analysis in mixed traffic; helmet and PPE compliance and behavioural interventions; rider training, licensing, and competence assessment; behavioural impacts of enforcement and incentive policies; telematics, wearables, and smartphone-derived behavioural data; equity dimensions of vulnerable road user safety; and policy and governance for gig-economy and micromobility safety. Out of scope: autonomous vehicle safety, ITS sensing and V2X protocols, cybersecurity of connected vehicles, infrastructure maintenance, and broad urban-mobility strategy. Topic editors: Tathagatha Khan, Bharat Kumar Pathivada, Saptarshi Sen, Manthirikul Sandeep Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/82662/human-factors-and-vulnerable-road-user-safety-in-the-era-of-emerging-mobility-powered-two-wheelers-micromobility-and-gig-economy-riders