Recap: Paris Vote On E-Scooter Sharing, A Turning Point For The Industry? - MOBILITY BRIEF_ ??????? - March 31st
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Good Friday everybody, it's time for your weekly Mobility Brief!
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We couldn't avoid to talk about the main event of the week, the Paris vote on whether or not banning E-Scooter sharing in the streets of the city. So we took the opportunity to give you our perspective on the topic in our recap. Grab a cup of coffee, and here we go!
?? Recap: Paris E-Scooter Sharing Vote: A Turning Point For The Industry?
D-2. On Sunday, Parisians will vote for whether or not to forbid any e-scooter sharing activity in the City of Lights. A vote triggered by the Mayor of Paris on mid-January, quoting safety issues, incivilities, wrongful parking in the streets, and accusing e-scooters of being not sustainable and not encouraging modal shift.
Nobody was surprised by this move, as tensions were growing between scooters operators and the City for several months, with the latter progressively piling up new rules to the former: selection of 3 operators (compared to up to 12 operators in 2019), application of a 15k e-scooters quota, geofenced speed limitations, exclusion of minors, and even threats of contract termination with the 3 operators last December which followed an ultimatum sent by the city on September. So all of this culminated with this vote announcement, finally embodying these months of threats into a concrete deadline and decision. By the way, never have an individual mean of transportation been that much regulated through technology: imagine our cars speed being automatically limited through geofencing? (I see you coming: ISA, or Intelligent Speed Assistant will be mandatory in cars in the UE next year, but is more informative than restraining) Or being unable to turn them off if ever you’re not parked on the right spot? Not even car sharing is impacted by such rules. However, public opinion matters and some shocking news stories involving e-scooters have contributed to polarize citizens in a textbook generational gap where above-45 are distrusting the e-scooters novelty while youngers are praising them. But between the two generations: guess who usually turns up to the polling stations? Enough to motivate the city to both tackle this topic and settle it through a vote then.
And that’s why operators are uniting their voices ahead of this April 2nd vote. Dott , TIER Mobility and Lime , current operators in the French capital, launch several communication campaigns to share their own arguments and oppose those expressed by the city. Through studies and polls first: in early January, 70% of Parisians expressed their wish to maintain e-scooter sharing according to an Ipsos study. A few weeks ago, Le Parisien also revealed a study from 6-t ordered then hidden by the city of Paris, whose results go the opposite way from the city statements: e-scooters accidents are identified as less frequents and less serious than those on shared e-bikes, and users demographics debunks the claims of e-scooters being used “by tourists and upper class only”, as one third of users are actually students and women "are twice as many to consider e-scooters as a way to get back safe at night than men". However, the study legitimated some of the critics regarding modal shift, as e-scooters mostly replace walk and transit trips. But the claim is sweetened by 6-t, saying that this trend is decreasing in favor of the replacement of more motorized trips. The city doesn’t have the monopoly of controversies though, with scooter operators accused of bribing young voters with ride credits against vote registration, and tasteless marketing operations bashing some Parisians neighborhoods. More recently this week, it’s now an aggressive TikTok campaign around both hashtags #SauveTaTrott (Save your scoot) and #Vote2Avril. Again, a new try to mobilize their core users, younger people, to go vote but legitimately raising criticism as those influencers weren’t mentioning the three scooters operators as sponsoring the operation. Not the smartest idea knowing the current debate in France regarding influencers regulation.
Why does it seem so crucial for those operators then? It’s only a local regulation after all. It is just a city indeed, but not just any city. Through the launch of Velib many years ago to the introduction of the “Coronapistes” cycling lanes, Paris is now seen as an example to follow amongst car-centric cities transitioning towards micromobility and a re-empowering the streets. How much could a ban of e-scooters in Paris spread to other municipalities then? That’s also what worries Karima Delli , chairwoman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism. And that’s also what is certainly worrying the whole e-scooter sharing industry currently, an industry already deeply shaken during the last months by market exits and multiple layoffs following their inability to reach profitability in a context of capital scarcity. Bird market value has been sliced by ten in a year! Hence the prospect of a ban in Paris cast the shadow of a market consolidation in the industry, with some actors risking their chance of survival as investors may be even less keen to keep burning cash over them.
Only one solution could arise to solve of all of the problems at once (I mean both profitability and safety issues) : regulation. If the city of Paris doesn’t seem quite satisfied with their own tentative at regulating e-scooters, it remains that the heterogeneity of the rules between every cities, and the uncertainty surrounding the contracts linking cities and operators both complexify the work for the latter to propose efficient and global solutions while operating in a profitable hence sustainable way. The situation in San Francisco, where operators exits the market due to excessive sanctions, is a good illustration of the matter. A step in the right direction has been made in France though, where Clément BEAUNE , Minister of Transportation, introduced a nationwide action plan for e-scooters on Wednesday: awareness, safety, sustainability and monitoring are all part of this plan, including a binding agreement signed with each operators as well as new national decrees: a first one elevating the minimum age for riding an e-scooter from 12y to 14y, and another one multiplying by almost 4 the current fines. Both nationwide. Is its timing an intentional dig to the Paris mayor, a few days before the vote?
In any case, the Paris vote on Sunday will certainly be a milestone for the e-scooter industry, regardless of the outcome. The beginning of a ban-spree or the eve of globalized regulatory frameworks? See you on Sunday evening on The Fast Lane to find out.
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