Parisians say au revoir to shared e-scooters

Residents of Paris voted on Sunday to ban e-scooters from the Metropolis of Love, and Mayor Anne Hidalgo responded by promising that the fleets of rechargeable rentables can be gone come September.

The result was overwhelming, with 89 % of votes forged in favor of the ban, although solely 103,084 of Paris’s 1,382,322 registered voters participated – round 7.5 %. In a abstract of the vote, the Parisian authorities famous that the ultimate choice on the ban fell to metropolis officers, who did not seem to plan on countermanding the non-binding end result.

“This night, the Parisians who spoke overwhelmingly spoke out towards self-service scooters. Their very clear message now turns into our roadmap. With my crew, we are going to comply with by means of on their choice as I promised,” Hidalgo stated.

Solely three firms are at present approved to function electrical scooter fleets in Paris – Lime, Dott and Tier – which had been granted three-year contracts in 2020 after Parisians voiced their dissatisfaction with a 2018 rollout within the metropolis. Per Paris’s authorities, the general public area occupancy agreements the three operators have all finish on August 31, and it appears Hidalgo does not plan to resume them.

Lime and Tier each instructed The Register they might be ceasing operations in Paris come September 1, although Tier did notice its shared e-bike service would nonetheless be obtainable within the metropolis.

Each firms expressed disappointment on the end result, however pointed to the truth that the low voter turnout meant the outcomes weren’t consultant of town’s whole inhabitants. “With roughly 93 % of residents not going to the polls, a big majority of Parisians have proven that e-scooters usually are not a difficulty,” a Tier spokesperson stated.

“We acknowledge the results of this unprecedented referendum, which was closely impacted by very restrictive voting strategies. This led to a particularly low turnout, closely skewed in direction of older age teams, which has widened the hole between professionals and cons,” stated a spokesperson for Lime.

Lime’s response got here from a third-party PR agency who stated the assertion represented a place “shared by Dott, Lime and Tier and never Lime talking for the trade.”

Security not assured

Since they began displaying up on metropolis streets in 2017, rentable electrical scooters have divided public opinion, however one factor is fairly clear: their riders have not been probably the most safety-conscious. 

A 2021 paper inspecting accident charges in Austin, Texas, discovered that e-scooter damage charges had been roughly 175 to 200 instances larger than different types of motorized vehicle journey based mostly on car miles traveled. One other report that checked out e-scooter accidents in Los Angeles discovered equally that e-scooter damage charges within the Metropolis of Angels exceeded nationwide bike accident charges.

In a late 2022 report on e-scooter accidents, the UK’s Division for Transport discovered that e-scooter collision volumes have continued to climb, as have casualty and fatality charges.

However the e-scooter firms working in Paris instructed us the vote meant the French capital was taking a step backwards in environmental sustainability by banning the automobiles. “The results of this vote can have a direct affect on the journey of 400,000 individuals per 30 days, 71 % of whom are 18 to 35-year-old residents,” the Lime spokesperson instructed us. 

No less than one research has discovered that shared e-scooters had been accountable for extra air pollution than electrical bikes, bikes and even electrical vehicles underneath comparable working circumstances. ®