A so-so product in a terrible market. A couple of people have asked for my thoughts on Paris "banning e scooters". Its been widely criticized by urbanists. This is a tough one, as I know many people who work in this space who do honest and good work making cities more liveable, but here's an honest two cents from me! As many of you know, the Netherlands is one of the best countries for getting around in a vehicle smaller than a car. You would expect it to be flooded with escooters. But its not. Theres two big reasons. The first is that its mostly illegal. Dutch law requires devices with a motor to have a license plate. The second reason few people talk about, is that there is no way one of these programs would be a success. In this country you can rent a bicycle for 24 hours from Dutch railways for a flat € 4,45. You dont have to worry about someone else using it. You dont need to take a photo of it. You just bring it back when done. The 24 hour cost is 4 times cheaper than the cost of riding a scooter with most of the sharing schemes for 1 hour Some of you might wonder how this program manages to be profitable, especially when you factor in the construction costs of all the cycle garages appearing lately by most dutch train stations. The truth is its not. The main purpose isn't to make money off rentals, but rather attract more train customers. With the cost of buying a few hundred bicycles and stalls, dutch railways can double or even triple its radius of customers. The person who previously didnt want to wait for a 30 minute bus connection can now go directly, or continue their journey from the final train station that didnt get you close enough. This is a different strategy and model than scooter sharing companies who need to eventually show profits to investors. To me, the scooter share is a transitory product. An honest attempt to improve the world but also flawed. Banned in a city that stays with car infestation, but also doomed by competition in the bicycle friendly city. Think about it. Your city just took first baby steps to get people out of cars. Some painted bike lanes. Bollards are coming in. You hear words like "active travel". But its also mainly in the downtown. And theres almost nowhere to securely park your bicycle and your seat has been stolen one too many times. Enter the scooter share. It's expensive. You're never sure if one is available. But its still the best option in the awful market of micro mobility options in the city dominated by parking lots. As the city improves and cyling feels safer and parking becomes easier, rather than hunting a scooter down on your phone, you'll probably instead unlock and use your own private bike or scooter, as a few hundred dollars means free travel for years. But the tourists will still use it since a couple dozen bucks beats buying a bike. Unless of course they leave them everywhere on the sidewalk and the local residents get tired enough of it to vote to ban them.
Felix Hamer
3w
I'd love to add that escooters are VERY friendly to (1 day visiting) tourists, while the OV fiets is simply only branded to locals because without an OV card you can't ride one. So your story sounds like the perfect world, that doesn't exist. Also implementation of ebikes is lagging, which would convince easily double the amount of customers. I recently lost my OV card: no more biking (I can pay for the train with my bank card, why not for the bike!) #alwaysberiding
"Dutch law requires devices with a motor to have a license plate." Does that include e-bikes Steffen Berr?
Wow, I don't even know where to begin. First off, thank you for sharing your thoughts. As a non-motorized kick scooter rider, myself, I try to be as considerate as an urban rider as possible. As ive been doing some regional traveling, ive often noticed e-scooters littering sidewalks, and therefore giving a bad name and stigma to scooter riding AS a viable form of micro mobility. I *would* like to see more policies in place that regulate e scooters have docking stations. I think this would significantly help as e-scooters can also be VERY helpful-particularly for those w disabilities.
Dara O.
1mo
Bikeshare > scootershare. Been saying this a long time but the market is the market. :)
Those of us who have worked with scooters have had a meeting in which companies try to hide the deficiencies of the service. Among them: - It is not inclusive; scooters are placed where they generate more income, not where residents need them the most. - The distribution and redistribution are mostly done with gasoline-powered cars. The scooters come from the other side of the world. Their carbon footprint is huge. - The depreciation is very high, and the devices are destroyed after a short time. No indicator could be used to defend scooters compared to bicycles. The scooter, although it has many good things as a PRIVATE means of transport, in the field of mass transportation is only possible with low-interest rates and money from investors who buy the speech without having sat down to talk with authorities OR in cities without a budget to promote any other system (bus, bikes, trams...)
Mateo Uravić
4w
There have been some studies conducted on the impact of e-scooters on active modes of transportation such as walking and cycling, but the results are somewhat mixed. One study conducted in Paris found that while e-scooters did lead to a decline in the use of bicycles and public transportation, they did not lead to a significant decrease in car use. However, another study conducted in the United States found that e-scooter riders were more likely to have previously walked, biked, or taken public transportation, suggesting that e-scooters may be replacing active modes of transportation. While it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions from these studies, there is some evidence to suggest that e-scooters may be impacting active modes of transportation in some areas. This highlights the importance of carefully considering the potential effects of new transportation technologies on public health and mobility.
A good summary of some of the problems of a for profit model of scooter as a transport medium. People just don't look after them and they will need to be brought to charging stations and not left all over the place or it will never work long term. Bicycles go better and are more sustainable, but many people may already be too lazy to cycle so e-bikes and e-scooters are going to have a niche. For rent and for profit models tend to give customers the shits and that leads to protest these days. The train company model is great and they have the money and locations to make a scooter network an option too. if supermarkets and universities/schools and hospitals as well as libraries and government buildings become bases as well we have a sustainable network.
Niall O'Hea
1mo
Steffen - this is a great start at highlighting that mobility operates in a system and that people’s choices will always be influenced by multiple factors. What is clear is that few cities have taken the time to properly examine and configure their system to support scooters and thus we see the obvious flaws in their use appear. Strategically- micro mobility must be the future (and shared services) .. thus we need to establish an operating system that supports this…whilst recognizing that the change will be hard on some and car manufacturers will also fight hard to resist.
Actively working for a sustainable future
3wReport
Report
It is mindblowing how biased, sloppy, false and misleading this post is. The whole post should have stopped at the very beginning, where it says that the scooters are not legal in the Netherlands. It is absolutely true that the Country is one of the very best for getting around in a vehicle smaller than a car. Everything else is just a biased consideration, given that escooters have not been allowed for some strictly-political reasons. "If it has a motor, must have a license plate"? What about the e-bikes then? Why the Netherlands was one of the few countries where you could ride a moped without a helmet and ride on a bike lane? These are neither "functional", "technical" nor "social" regulations, these, as per the "Paris ban", are just purely political reasonings. If scooter sharing was universally allowed to ride and park with the same freedom (no more, no less) that bikes, mopeds, and especially cars have, we would see an astonishingly strong ridership absolutely everywhere. So the Citizens do want, do need, this service. About the example of Dutch railways, again absolutely pointless. Of course, any subsidised and therefore cheap-for-customers service is very welcomed.