Micro-Mobility for Europe condemns Paris’ ban on shared e-scooters

Credit: Lime

Micro-Mobility for Europe (MMfE) has announced that it regrets the result of the referendum that had been held on 2 April 2023 in Paris, during which citizens voted against the continuation of shared e-scooters. Due to the low turnout, a small group of people have had a disproportionate influence on the city’s urban mobility system.

According to MMfE, discontinuing shared e-scooters in Paris will come at the cost of many citizens who wish to diversify their travel beyond private car ownership. Moving away from shared e-scooters isolates Paris from the rest of the world, with major capitals like Washington, Madrid, Rome, London, Berlin and Vienna further enabling this form of decarbonised transport.

E-scooters are a concrete solution based on the objectives of the COP21 agreements that had been signed in Paris, as independent research shows that mode shift from motorised vehicles accounts for almost 20%. As the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report from March 2023 shows, changing mobility patterns is a tool for all citizens to prevent a climate catastrophe and availability of shared micro-mobility is part of the solution.

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In addition, MMfE fears that such a restrictive approach will also impact the sustainable transportation goals, as outlined in its Joint Letter from November 2022, co-signed by Transport & Environment’s Clean Cities Campaign and the Urban Intergroup from the European Parliament.

Furthermore, a study that had been commissioned by the City of Paris, completed a year ago but only published in March 2023, shows that shared e-scooters are one of the safest mobility options in Paris.

In addition, MMfE incident data from 2021, taking into account more than 240 million shared e-scooter trips, reveals that privately owned e-scooters are twice as often involved in severe accidents than shared e-scooters. Thus, discontinuing shared e-scooters in Paris may lead to an uptake of private e-scooters, likely leading to more incidents. Overall, MMfE data shows that the risk of incidents is already significantly lower compared to 2019.