Paris received considerable criticism earlier this year when it decided to ban rental electric scooters in the city, restricting locals and tourists from using sustainable and convenient mobility.
In a surprising turn of events, Parisians found an intelligent counteraction to the ban.
Rental e-scooters ban took effect in September 2023
NPR reported that Paris officially imposed the ban on rental e-scooters on September 1, 2023. The legislation disappointed many locals, as they had already started to adopt this mobility option into their everyday lives.
“That’s not good for us because the scooter was good to get around. … It was more simple. It was very cool and so we’re sad.”
17-year-old rider Maria Cantal (via NPR)
Parisian riders reportedly started using rental e-scooters in 2018. This new transportation option continued to gain traction in the French capital. However, it has increasingly become dangerous for locals. There were reported injuries and some deaths involving shared e-scooters, as per the report.
In response, Paris started to reduce the number of self-service rental providers to gradually cut the presence of e-scooters on the streets. It also demanded riders to get off the sidewalks, lower their speeds, and park in appropriate areas.
In April, Paris officially held a referendum to know if the residents were for or against the “self-service scooters.” 89% of the respondents voted to ban them, prompting Mayor Anne Hidalgo to ban app-based rental scooters starting in September.
According to Electrek, electric scooters reached a peak of 15,000 units in the city to aid riders in traveling around conveniently.
It is worth noting that the ban did not cover private-owned electric scooters.
Parisians shift to shared bikes
Many people expected the ban to push Parisians to return from using larger vehicles in their daily commute around the city. However, Fluctuo’s latest European Shared Mobility Index report proved them wrong.
As per the report, Paris riders started to increasingly adopt rental dockless bikes after the city banned the use of shared electric scooters.
The data showed that Paris recorded a twofold growth in dockless bike trips from about 750,000 in September 2022 to almost 2 million trips in September 2023.
On the other hand, scooter trips declined 14% throughout Europe since the same period last year.
Paris recorded the second-highest average dockless bike trips per month in the third quarter of this year at 1.4 million trips, ZAG Daily noted.
“When it comes to transport, Paris has been one of the most forward-thinking cities over the last 5 to10 years and despite the recent scooter ban the city is dead-set on reducing private car use. Operators Dott, Lime and Tier have been asked to remove all their scooters by the end of August but, at the same time, they have been encouraged to double down on dockless bikes. The fleet of dockless bikes has reached 18,000 vehicles, which is almost the size of Velib’, the official station-based bike-sharing scheme.”
Fluctuo CEO Julien Chamussy
So what?
The report has proven that Paris’ ban on rental e-scooters cannot stop locals from turning to shared mobility platforms to ensure fast, convenient, and affordable travel.
It highlights the people’s efforts to avoid traffic congestion when using larger vehicles. That said, it is unsurprising that they quickly adopted shared bikes.
It would be interesting to see if Paris would also try to take the same hardline approach against the emerging rental dockless bike mobility in the city.
