While Lyon has decided to ban the use of self-service electric scooters for minors, the city of Paris could go even further by withdrawing them from the market. David Belliard, deputy mayor in particular in charge of mobility, mentioned this hypothesis.
Has the decline of self-service electric scooters begun? In Lyon, the use of such a machine is now reserved for adults, who must prove their age to the operator before each trip. In Paris, the town hall could take a much more radical decision and simply ban their use.
This hypothesis to be taken seriously was put forward by David Belliard, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of the transformation of public space, transport, mobility, the street code and roads. The interested party spoke on Twitter through three explanatory messages : one takes stock, the other two look to the future.
“With Emmanuel Grégoire, we received freefloating scooter operators because the account is not there: scooters parked anywhere, uncertainty about the environmental assessment, accidents, uninteresting modal shift, non-compliance with the highway code“begins David Belliard.
“Decision in a month max”
And to continue:5 months from the renewal of the contracts, we are asking ourselves the question of continuing or stopping here with the freefloating model for scooters. Are the operators able to react and quickly? That’s what we asked them“. But this decision will finally be known well before five months.
“If in the end the negative points (the ‘negative externalities’) are more numerous than the advantages then the decision will be simple: we will put an end to this model. Decision within a month max“, he concludes. The message is clear: if the operators do not respond to the various requests from the town hall, then no contract will be renewed.
For them, the deadline is short: in less than a month, they will have to seek and find solutions to submit to the municipality in order to convince it to maintain their activity. There are important issues here, since Paris is considered one of the world capitals of freefloating by operators.
The latter have also complied with many new rules in recent years. In July 2019, the parking of scooters on the sidewalks was banned. Instead, car parks provided for this purpose have been set up. Driving in parks and gardens has also been banned.
Strong decisions
But the strongest decision taken by the town hall was to limit the number of operators to three, via a call for tenders launched in 2019. In July 2020, the verdict fell, with three lucky elected officials selected: Lime , Dott and Tier, authorized at the time to deploy 5000 models each.
It must be said that at the time, discord reigned in the capital: a dozen operators had left to attack Paris, before Anne Hidalgo decided to limit their number. Rightly so, in short.
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