• While the Paris City Hall is considering whether or not to renew the concession granted to three operators of self-service electric scooters, they are organizing their defense.

  • Thus Dott, Lime and Tier organized a press conference this Thursday morning where they defended their activity and assured that their service was far from being as dangerous as it seemed.

  • The three operators also unveiled the eleven measures they addressed to the Paris City Hall, including the verification of the majority of the user.

It is the sacred union!

So certainly the expression is overused, but concerning the operators of self-service electric scooters in Paris, it applies wonderfully.

As proof, they went so far as to share the same slides during the press conference held this Thursday morning!

It must be said that the hour is serious.

At the end of September, the Paris City Hall summoned the three operators, Dott, Lime and Tier, to send them a virtual ultimatum: you have one month to find solutions to improve security and the occupation of the streets.

With the threat of non-renewal of the concession which expires in February 2023.

Faced with danger, the tocsin sounded and the operators grouped together.

They then, in time, sent to the Town Hall a common program comprising eleven measures but without return since, they affirm.

Just David Belliard, the Roads Assistant, spoke in several media.

And that did not reassure the musketeers of micromobility.

Thus in

Le Monde

of November 8, the elected ecologist declares this: “This mode of travel is not virtuous, since it replaces walking.

Accidents have increased by 189% since 2019, and the scooter generates an anxiety-provoking climate.

We do better as a declaration of love.

An American in Paris

Feeling the tide turn and before the decision of the Town Hall falls - it is rumored that Anne Hidalgo will decide in fine - the three operators have therefore invited the press to defend their service.

Proof that the situation is taken seriously, the American CEO of Lime, Wayne Ting, even made the trip, missing Thanksgiving with his family.

But it was Henri Moissinac, co-founder and CEO of Dott, who got the ball rolling by throwing out a few figures to "blow the neck of false information" and prove that the service is adopted by users.

"In October, there were 1.7 million trips made by 400,000 different users," he said.

And since October 2020, there has been a 77% increase in the number of trips made for a fleet of scooters that has remained unchanged.

»

Above all, Henri Moissinac assured that among the 24 users killed on a motorized personal transport device (EDPM), which includes electric scooters but also monowheels, Segways and hoverboards, "only one was killed on a shared scooter , even if it is always one death too many”.

For him, “the free-floating electric scooter is the only vehicle in Paris that is limited in speed”.

Finally, on the parking side, “96% of our scooters are parked in the right place”.

Identity check

To prove their good will, the trio unveiled its package of eleven measures addressed to the Paris City Hall and indicated that it would implement some of them as of now.

"We are not waiting and we will activate on Monday the functionality which makes it possible to verify that the user is of legal age via an identity card check," said Lawrence Leuschner, CEO of Tier.

And the scooters will have a license plate so that the police can identify the offending user.

Among the other proposals, we find the suspension in the event of a violation of the Highway Code, the proposal to finance an experiment in video verbalization, the development of technologies for detecting sidewalks or even the financing of additional parking spaces, which are today numbering 2,500.

Our file on scooters

But it was perhaps Wayne Ting's intervention that was the most persuasive, flattering, in English, the Gaulish chauvinism that slumbers in us.

“Who is leading the way in the green transport revolution?

Paris, he launched.

The world is watching Paris on how it has regulated micromobility.

We are building a future with fewer cars and we would like to abandon that and return to an era with more cars?

It's beautiful, it's

made in America

, but will that be enough to convince the Paris City Hall?

It had not responded to our requests at the time of writing these lines.

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