From September there will be no more e-scooters on the sidewalks in Paris.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
Berlin The Parisian referendum in early April, in which they decided to ban electric rental scooters in the French capital from September, stirred up the industry. The distributors feared that the vote would send out a signal. Providers such as Tier, Voi, Bolt and Co. are familiar with such prohibitions. As a study by the management consultancy McKinsey shows, they are commonplace in the 100 most populous cities in the world, which are home to a total of one billion people.
35 of these metropolises have therefore banned the rental of e-scooters, citing, among other things, the risk of accidents, the space requirement in public spaces and the possible chaos on sidewalks. The high number is mainly due to the fact that China has put a complete stop to the use. That’s why there are no pictures of Chinese riding e-scooters in cities like Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou – even though many of the scooters used around the world are manufactured there.
However, not only China relies on a ban. There are also other major cities around the world where no rental is possible. These include Barcelona, Philadelphia, Sydney and Toronto. Paris will soon be added, probably as the first European capital. At the end of August, the licenses for the three providers Tier, Lime and Dott will no longer be renewed. This is a hard blow for the e-scooter start-ups who are doing everything they can to finally get into the black or stay there. Tier has laid off well over 200 employees to cut costs. Experts expect a consolidation.
Some cities regulate volumes through tenders
According to the McKinsey survey, the remaining 100 world metropolises regulate the use of e-scooters either through tenders or leave it entirely up to the providers themselves. 13 of the 100 major cities use tenders for regulation and also specify the number of providers. Washington, Los Angeles and, in Europe, Madrid do this, for example.
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The industry advocates such an approach and has now developed its own guidelines for cities. The McKinsey study states that such a form of regulation could make it more difficult for new competitors to enter the market and possibly make it easier to set up their own e-scooter infrastructure with special paths, parking spaces and charging stations. This in turn would help to better integrate e-scooters into traffic as a green mobility solution.
According to the study, there are also 23 cities that completely allow rental and do not restrict the number of providers. They only have to report to the authorities and are subject to general requirements such as speed limits or the area in which they are allowed to operate. This is how Tokyo, São Paulo and Berlin, for example, handle it. The remaining metropolises have so far not controlled the use of e-scooters at all. These include Mumbai and New Delhi as well as Cairo and Dhaka.
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