E-scooter hire: How major cities manage them

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Ever ridden an e-scooter in a European city? Whizzed around Rome’s Colosseum like a charioteer, or down London’s Regent Street, around Piccadilly Circus and along The Mall? Zippy, fun and perfect for the casual user, e-scooters put wings on your feet, but they come with problems, and not everyone loves them. In Mexico City they’re known as patines del diablo, “the devil’s skates”.

Since e-scooters first appeared in European cities in about 2018 a familiar pattern has emerged. Cities introduced them without a strict regulatory framework, operators piled in to capitalise on this new phenomenon and chaos followed. Users flouted common sense and safety rules, riding helter-skelter on pavements, sometimes riding tandem and leaving scooters where they fell, clogging busy pavements. Locals got annoyed and, worse still, injured, and city authorities enforced clampdowns. In extreme cases rental e-scooters have been banned.

Shared e-scooters have been banned in the City of Melbourne.Credit: Joe Armao

The same thing is happening now in Melbourne, with Melbourne City Council banning the shared e-scooters after too many incidents and injuries, even as some councils in the city’s north plan to allow them. NSW is running trials in some parts of the state but is yet to allow them in central Sydney, while they are available in Queensland, including Brisbane, as well as on trial in Perth.

While e-scooters are intended mainly for use by locals they’re also popular with tourists, and that’s a problem. Speed limits, helmet regulations, where scooters can and can’t be ridden and where they can be parked are all different from one city to the next. Since they’re hired via an app, how is a user who might be in town for just a few days supposed to be across the dos and don’ts?

Short of an outright ban, London has the toughest rules of any city regarding the use of e-scooters. So tight is the regulatory straightjacket that it is impractical for visitors to rent one. Riders must download the operator’s app and complete a registration process, verifying their age, proving they hold a driver’s licence and completing a mandatory course on safe riding in the capital before their first ride.

London has some of the toughest controls on e-scooters.Credit: iStock

The speed limit is capped at 12.5mph (20km/h) but there are go-slow areas where the speed is automatically reduced to 8mph (13km/h). E-scooters are not allowed to be carried on any public transport and they come with geofence technology to ensure they are used and parked only in authorised locations.

Despite the well-publicised hostility that locals have shown to the tourists who swamp their city, squirting them with water pistols and chanting “go home”, or much less polite versions, the city has taken a relatively liberal stance governing the use of rented e-scooters. E-scooters can be ridden on roads and cycle paths, where they can travel at up to 30km/h. On cycle paths the speed limit is 25km/h, throttled back to 10km/h on cycle tracks located on footpaths or in pedestrian zones. Riders must wear a helmet and the minimum age is 15. Scooters must be parked in designated areas reserved for motorcycles or on pavements at least three metres wide.

Fines for breaches of the rules are hefty – €200 ($331) for riding without a helmet, €500 ($825) for riding on the pavement. The city takes a tough line on illegally parked e-scooters, which will be removed and a fine issued to the operator, charged to the renter’s credit card plus an administration fee. In November 2022, an e-scooter erupted in flames on board a city train and the city subsequently banned them from public transport.

Paris became the first European capital to outlaw rental e-scooters when they were banned in September 2023. The French capital has had an on-and-off relationship with rental e-scooters since they were introduced in 2018. Initially it was an unregulated free-for-all. E-scooters were left strewn across pavements and speeding riders zigzagged between unwary pedestrians. A year after they appeared rental e-scooters were banned from the city’s pavements.

Scooters clogging the footpath in Paris. The city eventually banned them after a referendum.Credit: iStock

In a bid to stave off further clampdowns rental operators hiked the minimum age for renters to 18. In June 2021, the city recorded its first fatality in an e-scooter accident when a 31-year-old woman was knocked to the ground by a couple on an e-scooter, sending her into a coma from which she later died. The accident caused an uproar, and city authorities set the speed limit for e-scooters at 10km/h, a limit that begged to be broken.

In 2022 the city’s 15,000 rental e-scooters logged about 20 million trips, but in the same year they were involved in 459 accidents, and three fatalities. In April 2023 a referendum nailed the coffin shut, with 90 per cent of the city’s residents who turned out to vote saying “Non!” .

Riders need to be at least 16 years old, they must not be used on sidewalks, but they can be used on the city’s bike paths and on streets with a speed limit of 30mph (48km/h), which applies to most of Manhattan. Riders 16-18 years of age must wear a helmet, for older riders the helmet is optional. Speed limit for e-scooters is 20mph (32km/h). Unlike European cities, e-scooters can only be hired from and returned to the operator’s agency. They are not nearly as available nor as convenient for casual use as in other cities, and therefore not as widely used. They are hired by the hour, with prices starting at around US$20 ($30) per hour.

Copenhagen introduced e-scooter rentals in 2018, banned them two years later after a campaign by citizens objecting to speedsters and parking problems, but then retracted the ban in 2021 after tougher conditions were imposed. Now instead of 20 e-scooter operators who flooded into the city initially there are just four, with the number of e-scooters capped at 3200. The minimum age is 15 years and a helmet is required. E-scooters cannot be rented from the central part of the city, and they must be parked at one of 240 designated zones. E-scooters are speed-capped at 20km/h. Failure to wear a helmet will incur a fine of between 700 and 1500 kroner ($155-330).

Scooters in Rome face tough restrictions, but riders also face other issues like the city’s notorious traffic.Credit: Getty Images

Tourists love them, but city authorities have faced a rising tide of discontent over the way e-scooters have been used. Rome introduced e-scooters at the start of the pandemic as an alternative to public transport but between 2020 and 2022 four people died while riding them. When a US tourist chucked her rented e-scooter down the Spanish Steps in mid-2022, causing €25,000 ($41,400) worth of damage, finally the clamps came down.

Hired e-scooters must be parked in designated spots. Scooters are tracked and the app might continue to charge if a scooter is left outside a designated zone. Some scooter apps require a final photograph of the parked scooter to ensure compliance. In pedestrian areas, the scooter’s geolocation device caps the speed at just 6km/h. The take-no-prisoners attitude of Roman drivers makes for challenging scootering. Many Roman streets are paved with cobblestones, causing a juddering ride. When wet, they’re slippery and brakes tend to lock the wheels, making riding dangerous.

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