Paris e-scooters forced to slow down in busy areas
Rented electric scooters are being forced to slow down to just above walking speed in many areas of Paris under rules coming into force on Monday, operators have said.
In 700 areas in the French capital, including around key tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum, rental scooter speed will be capped at 10km/h (6mph).
Scooters run by rental companies Dott, Tier and Lime, tracked in real time by geo-location, will automatically be slowed down to half their normal top speed once they enter the designated areas.
The main criteria for picking the zones was the strong presence of pedestrians, the operators said in a joint statement. These include parks, gardens, streets near schools, squares in front of public buildings and of places of worship, pedestrianised streets and busy shopping areas.
The death in June of a 32-year-old Italian woman who was hit by a scooter in a pedestrian area prompted demands for tighter regulation of the vehicles.
City hall threatened the three private operators that it would renew their licences only if they made progress towards speed limits, and also got users to park scooters in designated areas instead of dumping them on streets and pavements at the end of the rental period.
On Monday, David Belliard, Paris’s deputy mayor in charge of transport, told AFP the restrictions were “a first step, but nowhere near enough”.
More slow-speed zones were needed, he said, including in areas where pedestrians, cyclists and scooter riders shared spaces such as on the banks of the Canal Saint-Martin and the River Seine, long stretches of which are car-free.
Every Paris district would supply a list of desired slow zones over the coming weeks, which would be passed on to the operators.
The three operators have, meanwhile, made progress towards addressing the parking of scooters.
They now require users to take a picture proving that they dropped off the scooter in the right place, and have also created a joint 12-person taskforce to pick up scooters left randomly in the street.