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- This year marks the first spring and summer when well-funded scooter startups, such as Bird and Lime, will be fully operational in Europe.
- This is an important test as more and more people will choose scooters as the weather gets warmer.
- But these companies are carrying out many regulatory battles around the world, as different cities are trying to stop scooter flooding through licensing systems or banning them altogether.
- Municipal regulators have now heard a lot about the future of highly solvent business mobility such as Uber, Mobike, Ofo and Taxify, which then caused severe headaches.
- Business Insider has been talking with Bird and Wind scooter startups to find out how they will balance their expansion by avoiding the mistakes of their predecessors.
The story is now familiar.
An ambitious, multi-billion dollar company believes it can help solve one of humanity's biggest problems: climate change.
Too many people depend on driving their cars to work, they argue, which is bad for urban congestion, air pollution, the planet, health and happiness in general. .
This well-funded, well-funded youngcomer claims to have the right solution, if only your city is considering changing the rules.
His name? Uber, Taxify, Mobike, Obike, Ofo, Bird, Lime – delete if any.
Scooters are the third wave of companies promising a radical change in daily commutes in the city.
The summer of 2019 announces as that of scooters, at least in Europe.
Bird, the California poster of scooter startups, has only been launched in Europe in July 2018. Similarly, Rival Lime has only expanded in June 2018 European countries such as the Swedish Voi and the Berlin wind have also developed until 2018.
In other words, this is the first time that well funded large scooter startups are fully operational during the hottest season in Europe – and this is a crucial test. Scooter manufacturers expect warm weather to signal an increase in demand as people are more likely to walk outside under the sun.
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"Spring is really the most exciting time," said Business Insider Matt Turzo, Wind's EMEA Operations Director. "In the last few weeks, as the weather turned, the temperatures have been huge, people are seeing wind scooters roaming the city, the weather is so good, they are jumping on them."
But this generation of startups will have to prove to regulators that they can bear the added burden, both in terms of vehicle wear and scooter protection around cities.
They will also have to prove that they are different from some of their predecessors in terms of mobility.
Regulators in London, for example, may well feel jaded after the arrival of several waves of companies backed by venture capital companies promising to unclog the city and cause more headaches, or simply disappear.
The transport regulator of the capital has long disputed with Uber for safety issues and has finally granted the company only a temporary license for London.
The regulator has also banned its rival Taxify, which has bypbaded the city's licensing rules.
Then Chinese giants Bicycle Sharing Mobike, Nike and Ofo arrived, promising to get the city's population to exercise. Obike threw bikes everywhere in London without asking the local authorities' opinion, and then closed shop a year later. Mobike has retired from the UK after a year of activity. Ofo would be on the brink of bankruptcy.
It is therefore a delicate period for newcomers, promising a transport revolution.
Patrick Studener, Bird's European leader (and a former Uber), told Business Insider in an interview that the company was aware of the sector's brief history.
"We have to be respectful because we have seen other companies or other modes of transportation grow very quickly." Innovation has negative repercussions, if innovation goes way too aggressive or the wrong way, "he said.
"I know it, I sometimes have the feeling that there is scar tissue from time to time.When you talk to people, it's like:" Oh no, it's not another innovation in mobility. "But it's up to us to explain why we should have room, I think we showed that."
Studener said that Bird's approach was not aimed at growth at all costs, but sustainable launch. "I do not want to go to all cities," he said. "We want good cities, we want to engage in the right way."
Studener said Bird had spent "a lot of time in advance" talking with various cities before launching scooters in that city.
"We are newcomers, so people should ask questions and we should have good answers to these questions," Studener added. "This has allowed us to maintain good relations with the regulators and planners, who are ultimately stewards of the city … that is certainly what we will do for the future instead of rushing us. "
That may be true now, but Bird certainly had regulatory problems when it was launched in the United States. The company was fined $ 300,000 in Santa Monica, its first city, for alleged failure to obtain proper business licenses.
Matt Turzo of Wind arrived at the start of Lyft. Lyft, although he has encountered the same regulatory problems as Uber, does not quite have the same reputation for growth mentality at any cost.
Like Bird's Studener, he said the company was trying to be as open as possible with the regulators.
"At Wind, we take a lyft-esque approach of having this conversation and being willing to discuss it," he told Business Insider. "We participate in these discussions on the premise that regulators want to do the best they can for their constituents, they have a job to do."
Some cities are more receptive than others.
Bird launched in France with relatively few problems, which according to Studener, wanted to experiment with technologies to reduce CO2 emissions and develop a new regulation as and when.
But in London, electric scooters are technically illegal thanks to a 135-year-old law, originally designed to regulate horse-drawn cars.
The UK government, which has lobbied Bird and Lime in particular, is making friendly noises about the change, but progress will probably be slow. Both companies hired former British government advisers to help them advocate with the European city control authorities. And Bird got the right to carry out an extended test of his scooters in the Olympic Park in East London.
And last year, Madrid banned the bulk of electric scooters from its street, but then granted thousands of licenses to various companies, including Voi, Wind and Uber's Jump Scooters service. Bird was one of seven scooter startups to decline.
In the end, Studener is optimistic because most countries want to reduce their emissions. Of course, Bird and his rivals present themselves as an environmentally friendly means of transportation, even though the researchers say the situation is not so simple.
A summer of scooters will probably mean a summer of injury
When Business Insider drove a scooter last week at Bird's offices in East London, it was undeniably exhilarating.
The appeal is clear, especially on a sunny day: get on a scooter and go from one point to another while discovering a city. It's also noticeably nicer than suffering through the fug of the London Underground.
Matt Turzo, of Wind, said it was an essential selling point for his company's scooters. "There is a role to play in freeing commuters and getting people to engage with their city like never before – it 's about not having to plan a two – hour commute to the city. ahead to make sure you can cross the city. "
An increase in the use of the scooter will probably also result in more accidents, which will be another test for startups.
It is difficult to obtain reliable data on injuries caused by a scooter. In the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Transport measures road accidents but does not clbadify electric scooters as a separate category.
Data provided by the United States suggests that scooters can cause serious injury or even higher injury rates. A number of deaths related to electric scooters also occurred in the United States.
A study by the Portland Bureau of Transportation found that the rate of e-scooter injuries was 2.2 accidents per 10,000 miles – much higher than the US national average for motorcycles (0.05 per 10,000) km) and cars (0.1 per 10,000). All of these incidents do not concern rental scooters. The average is therefore probably lower.
Tarak Trivedi, an emergency physician and health services researcher at UCLA, conducted an in-depth study last year on how scooters could send people to A & E services.
The study found that electric scooters were badociated with 249 visits to the emergency room between September 2017 and August 2018; injuries, including fractures, pulmonary contusions and dislocations, have been reported. Only a tiny fraction of cyclists wore helmets.
(Bird criticized the report for not focusing solely on road accidents and deaths of motorcycles and cars.)
Trivedi told Business Insider that he had decided to do a search on emergency room visits after using the electric scooters himself during their first launch in Los Angeles.
"I recognized that once [scooters] Having become an industry worth billions of dollars, they would arrive in all regions of the world, "he said. These are vehicles that can move you up to 15 miles per hour, but some people we saw lacked respect for the nature of the beast. There were people drunk, or driving irresponsibly with two people on a scooter. It's about recognizing that it's not just a toy, it's like a car. "
Trivedi added that previous designs meant scooters were not working properly. "There was some type of thumb brake that was sticking in. You want something that you can engage and the mechanism will not work if you need it the most," he said. The small wheels, he added, would throw someone from the scooter if they hit an obstacle.
Despite the horrible signs of injury, Trivedi think scooters are a good innovation.
"Anything that reduces car travel is good for the environment and for us as a society," he said. "It is clear that we could encourage safety with a focus on safety … maybe we need lower speeds and proven safety concepts."
Bird and Lime both promised to take security measures. Lime's president said last year that the firm would exclude drunk users. Both companies also offered free helmets as part of marketing campaigns.
Studener said: "Everything we do starts with the safety, development and design of the scooter, as well as the tutorials we offer."
He added that, if they were used correctly, scooters were "tied" with the bikes in terms of safety and that most road accidents could be attributed to cars rather than to cars. Other vehicles.
The UK is going to run out of scooters right now
The UK, for the moment, will miss the summer scooters.
While the Ministry of Transport (DfT) announced in March that it would review the legal status of electric scooters, it did not specify when such a review would take place.
A spokesman for the London Transport Regulator stressed the safety of scooters in a statement to Business Insider: "We welcome the focus of the safety magazine as it reflects our commitment to Vision Zero and guarantees the safety of the new means of transport, the question is about the moment because there is no indication of when the examination will take place. "
Bird's Studener acknowledged that it could be many months before rented electric scooters were available en mbade in the capital.
"Regulatory revisions can last for several months," he said, adding, "I'm really excited about this.Any movement in the right direction, I'm excited." They had come and said: "The scooters are going to start on Monday," it would have been nice, but it's also a little unrealistic.
"A lot of the regulation is quite old and [the Department for Transport] says that it is not shy to update the law, and that is what we are for. I understand that whatever they do, it will be for a moment, so they have to think of all the chain effects. "
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