In December 2019, the city of Paris officially published its invitation to tender to select only three scooter operators in the capital. The results have just come in this Thursday, July 23rd at 2:45 pm by David Belliard, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of transport. And the big winners are Rolling drums… Lime, Dott and TIER Mobility. A look back at these 6 months of long waiting and the changes brought about in the scooter sector in Paris.
Sixteen operators in the running
Sixteen ! Here is the official number of applications filed up to March 11th. 16 competitors for only 3 places. Many more than the number of operators currently present in Paris. On these sixteen applications, we found historical players such as Lime, Bird, TIER, Jump, Dott, Wind, Voi or Lyft. But also atypical operators such as Pony. French startup present in Oxford, Bordeaux and Angers, they have the particularity of offering the user to put his scooter at his disposal in order to earn half of the income of each ride. And finally, car manufacturers, such as Spin by Ford or FreeNow, by BMW and Daimler.
A selection over several months
In order to evaluate the operators, the call for tenders selected three selection criteria. These were “environmental responsibility” (40% of the score), user safety (30%) and finally the “management, maintenance and recharging” of the scooter fleet (30%). In order to convince the members of the jury, each candidate had to present his or her own “operating project”. A project detailing “the conditions for the operation of its shared vehicle service, to enable the proposal to be assessed in terms of respect for the public roadway domain occupied and the suitability of its project for the general Parisian interest, particularly in terms of sustainable development”.
An occupancy agreement for a period of 2 years
In order to regulate the volume of scooters as much as possible, the city of Paris has planned to grant a maximum of 5,000 scooters per operator. In addition, Lime, Dott et TIER will only have to deploy in the 2,500 “shared storage areas” (ZPR). These are parking spaces reserved, only for free-floating scooter. They can accommodate a minimum of six scooters per operator. “Eventually, all self-service scooters will have to park in these spaces, and nowhere else,” says Christophe Najdovski, Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of public spaces. To ensure compliance with its new rules, operators will have to agree to share their geolocation data with the City of Paris. Finally, it should be noted that in terms of safety, scooters will have to comply with European standards.
