After Cologne, Frankfurt no longer wants to accept that the presumably more than 6,000 e-scooters in the city may be parked arbitrarily in public spaces.

Mobility Department Head Stefan Majer (Die Grünen) has announced that from the first quarter of 2022, a start will be made on defining fixed parking spaces for the rental e-scooters in the city center.

Majer speaks of stations or parking zones.

In the next step, parking spaces for the scooters are to be identified at other “hotspots” such as train stations.

Mechthild Harting

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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This ends the previous business model in which the e-scooters, which have been approved in German cities since June 2019 without any regulation by the Federal Minister of Transport, can be parked or rented anywhere.

The topic "burns the citizens on the nails", said Majer on Monday evening in the mobility committee of the city parliament.

After all, the e-scooters are often parked improperly and in a hazardous manner, especially in the city center and in areas close to the city center.

From a "fun vehicle" to a solution for short distances

Majer speaks of a “wild west situation” that is doing this mode of transport and the five providers currently in Frankfurt a “disservice”.

Unlike many citizens, he does not consider e-scooters to be nonsensical.

E-scooters developed from a “fun vehicle” to a solution for short distances, for the “famous 1000 meters”, but also for distances of less than five kilometers.

According to Majer, offers at U- and S-Bahn stations in less central parts of the city are conceivable.

However, the parking must be clarified urgently.

Up until now, it was not clear to the municipalities on what basis they could set guidelines.

However, in the case of the city of Düsseldorf in November 2020, the Münster Higher Administrative Court ruled that the parking of rental bicycles could be classified as special use.

Frankfurt now wants to take this path.

The e-scooter providers must therefore apply for a special use permit in the future and thus accept the new rules.

In order to exchange ideas about this route, City Councilor Majer invited the lenders to a round table for the first time on Monday.

The operators have signaled a "great willingness to contribute to meaningful solutions".

E-scooters and geofencing

The city's specifications should include more than just the fixed parking spaces that will probably be created in the area of ​​the Zeil in the access roads that lead to the Zeil. Because the planned set of rules should prohibit parking in pedestrian zones. But also on the Main and other road bridges such as in parks and green areas, in the forest, in nature and landscape protection areas as well as in playgrounds and cemeteries, the city wants to generally prohibit parking. The lenders of the vehicles should ensure this with so-called geofencing, which triggers an alarm when certain spatial limits are exceeded.

But that's not all, the mobility department also wants to regulate in detail where the scooters can be parked beyond the fixed stations.

The providers should park a maximum of five vehicles at one location.

The e-scooter drivers are not allowed to park the scooters on bike paths, too close to guidance systems for the blind, in front of fire service entrances, traffic lights, entrances and not at intersections, to name just the essentials.

A 1.5-meter-wide "remaining walkway" must remain free on the sidewalks.

The entire set of rules is aimed at the user, but also very much at the operator.

Because the city wants to hold them liable if the e-scooters are parked incorrectly.

In addition, the companies Tier, Voi, Lime, Bolt and Bird have to set up a 24-hour hotline for complaints according to the will of the city.

Majer knows that just designating the permanent parking spaces will be a "great effort", after all, Frankfurt does not have wide boulevards like other cities.

He sees the problems associated with the special use permit, but it is a way of achieving regulation.

The mobility department head, who always rides his bike himself, described the behavior of some e-scooter users as "crazy": They put themselves at risk and did not adhere to the rules in the slightest.

"I sometimes wonder if people are tired of life."