Big hit for shared micromobility firms Lime, Dot, TearParis voted for Ban Rent an e-scooter from the street. Many in the industry fear that the move in Paris, where free-floating scooters first appeared in 2018, will have ripple effects in other cities.
Paris is one of the most highly regulated e-scooter markets, pointing to it as an example of how companies can get along with the city. Despite limiting the scooter’s top speed to as low as possible, 10 km/h (about 6 miles per hour), and passengers must use private parking or pay a fine. Paris has become the first city to completely reverse its policy of offering contracts to shared micromobility companies.
In a referendum hosted by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Sunday, 89% of Parisians opposed keeping shared e-scooters in the city. The three companies are required to remove their vehicles (a total of 15,000 e-scooters) from the city by September 1st.
Initially welcoming shared e-scooters to Paris, Hidalgo has pushed Paris to become a more livable 15-minute city, with policies to reclaim car parking spaces and create new bike lanes and pedestrian-friendly areas. has been at the forefront of However, shared scooters have received a lot of backlash from many city dwellers who often complain of reckless driving and cluttered sidewalks.
Hidalgo said on Sunday that scooters are responsible for many accidents and that a business model that costs around €5 for a 10-minute ride is too expensive to be sustainable. She also said free-wheeling scooters aren’t as climate-friendly as she’d like. TechCrunch digs into scooter usage in Paristhrough various studies, found that e-scooters are incredibly popular, but mostly replace walking and public transport rather than using a car.
That doesn’t mean they have replaced car travel. 1 study We found that since 2019, 7% of distances traveled by scooter have replaced travel by car or private taxi, and this number is increasing year on year. But 7% is not zero, he says, Hélène Chartier, C40’s director of urban planning. Chartier had previously served as an advisor to Hidalgo.
“As part of the mobility package that Paris offers as an alternative to the car, [shared e-scooters] It could have been an option,” Chartier said. “If it weren’t for all the other problems, they could have said this. But add accidents and difficulties in public spaces, and at some point you have to say that this is not the main solution.” Yes, we should invest more in bicycles, e-bikes and walking.”
low voter turnout
David Zipper, a visiting fellow at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard Kennedy School, said: murmured He wasn’t surprised that Paris voted against sharing electric scooters, but he didn’t expect it to make such a big difference. increase.
Dot, Lime and Tia said in a joint statement that low voter turnout impacted the outcome of the referendum. Only 103,084 people voted for him, which is about 7.5% of registered voters in Paris.they blamed Restrictive regulations, a limited number of polling stations (hence the long queues that discourage younger voters), and the lack of electronic voting make this combination “highly biased towards well-ordered age groups, with pros and cons. The gap is widening,” he said.
Additionally, a referendum was held on the same day as the Paris Marathon, allowing only Paris residents to vote, excluding those who live just outside the city but commute.
The operator offered free rides to customers who voted on Sunday and relied on social media influencers to try to get younger users to vote, but it seems to have failed. reported a high proportion of voters.
Referendums are non-binding, so based on low voter turnout, Hidalgo could make the unlikely decision to keep scooters in the city. The numbers clearly show that scooters are popular. Lime previously told TechCrunch that 90% of his vehicles in Paris are in use every day. In 2021, over 1.2 million scooter his riders (85% of whom are Parisians) have ridden a total of 10 million rides on Lime, Dot and Tia. This equates to approximately 27,000 rides per day.
The ban will not affect e-bikes offered by shared micromobility companies, which will remain in the city. Similarly, privately owned scooters were unaffected by the ban, with 700,000 sold in France last year, according to Transport Ministry figures.
