On Sunday 2 April 2023, Parisians voted, with an overwhelming majority, to remove shared e-scooter services from the city. The local referendum was organised by the City Council of the French capital, although it had a very low turnout with only 103,000 people voting of the 1.3 million who were registered (so less than 10%). As a result, the authorities will ban shared e-scooter services from the city’s streets, thus becoming the first capital that has decided to do so.
The debate on whether or not to ban shared e-scooter services has aroused passion in recent months on both sides, with arguments that are often repeated in other cities around the world. The result is not legally binding, but the Mayor of Paris (since 2014) Anne Hidalgo had promised to respect its result. If she keeps her promise, the City of Light, one of the first to open up to this type of mobility, will no longer have shared e-scooters by September 2023. As of today, three companies currently operate in the capital (Lime, Dott and Tier), with a total fleet of 15,000 vehicles; their contracts end on 31 August 2023.
Hidalgo, whose current term ends in 2026, has spent months positioning herself against e-scooters, which she considers dangerous, unecological (due to the short duration of their lithium batteries) and a source of conflict in public spaces. In order to settle the debate and make a decision about the future of e-scooters, at the end of January she decided to organise a public consultation. The vote does not affect electric scooters owned by individuals, who will be able to continue to use them.
Shared e-scooters first appeared in Paris in 2018, when more than 12 operators offered their services. Since then, they have proliferated, sometimes creating friction with pedestrians, motorists and cyclists. While for some residents of the capital they represent an easy and cheap way of travelling around at any time, others see them as dangerous vehicles that cause accidents and chaos in public spaces.
People who voted to keep shared e-scooters believed that they contribute to reducing pollution, reducing the use of cars and easing crowding on public transport. People in favour also recognise the need to better regulate shared mobility, as well as to increase awareness and training on how to properly use shared e-scooters.
The organisation of the consultation has been criticised by the three companies that currently offer the shared mobility service in Paris, as the consultation did not provide the opportunity to vote either online or by proxy. Fearing that they would be kicked out of the city, the operators had launched a campaign to encourage their users to vote in favour e-scooters. A few months ago, the operators also announced new measures to reassure local authorities, such as identity checks to avoid users being under the legal age, the use of license plates and an increase in the number of agents to check that vehicles were being parked correctly.
In order to address concerns, local authorities had already imposed several regulations. Since June 2019, e-scooters are considered as “motorised personal vehicles” and thus are subject to traffic regulations; their speed has also been limited to 10-20km/h. In addition, they can be ridden by only one person at a time and cannot be used in public parks or on pavements, while the minimum age to use them has been set at 12 years’ old and they have to be parked in dedicated parking spaces. These measures, however, have not been enough, according to the City Council.