As the national Loi d’Orientation des Mobilités (LOM), long-awaited to clarify the usage rules of E-scooters and free-floating regulations, is getting behind schedule, it is getting complicated for French cities to wait for it. On March 21st, Paris city council unveiled a new set of rules (which still have to be voted): after a first “good conduct chart” signed between the local authority and the operators in fall 2018, Paris is taking strong measures to try to contain the disorder created by these services. Because there’s a lot of players here:

• Mobike, Donkey Republic and Oribiky for bicycles
• Bird, Bolt, Dott, Flash,  Hive, Lime, Tier, Voi and Wind for E-scooters
• Coup and Cityscoot for E-mopeds
• Car2go (Daimler), Free2Move (PSA) and Moov’in Paris (Renault)

As in many other cities, the mess created by the introduction of thousands of E-scooters has forced the authority to react, and Paris chose to introduce a public space occupation fee for all these vehicles. It was already in place for cars (200€/car/year) and it is now extended to all the range. Interestingly, bicycles and E-bicycles are in the same category, as Paris chose to separate human-powered + electric assistance (bikes, E-bikes, scooters) from electric motorisation (kick-scooters). In addition, the tax will be a tier one: +10% for vehicles 500 to 1000, +20% for vehicles 1000 to 3000, +30% above 3000.

The income will be used to create 2500 parking zones for free-floating vehicles (bikes, scooters, and mopeds). It has not been disclosed if it will consist of racks or painted boxes yet.

In addition, restrictions have been adopted regarding pavement usage: bicycles, scooters and mopeds are not allowed TO RIDE OR PARK on the pavement (it was already the case for bikes and mopeds of course). E-scooter riders caught while riding on the pavement will receive a 135€ fine, while traffic wardens now have the power to claim removals when they identified badly parked vehicles. What effect will it have on parking habits? Operators, who will suffer directly from these rules, will have to find strong solutions to change user behaviour.

In France, Lyon and Bordeaux are also working on good conduct chart together with the operators, along with the implementation of public space occupation fees.