Ripple Effects Of Paris E

Electric scooter in Warsaw, Poland on May 20, 2021 (Photo by Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto via Getty ... [+] Images)

While Europe's e-scooter industry makes sense of Paris's decision to ban the shared vehicles, no such talk is taking place in Berlin.

That's according to Natascha Spörle, who heads up public policy at ride-hailing and micromobility player Bolt, overseeing Germany and the pivotal Berlin market.

The backlash against e-scooters has been "very curiously viewed" by German cities, Spörle said.

"Paris was in the last couple of years the example for German cities. They all looked to Paris, before they all looked to Copenhagen and in the last couple of years, they all looked to Paris," she said, referring to the French capital's investment in cycling infrastructure and a shift away from cars.

"On this specific topic, they're not really looking to do it the same way as Paris [with a ban]. I also talked to a couple of cities that said we are not going to do as Paris."

Bolt is a relative newcomer to Berlin, launching its e-scooters in 2021 following a federal regulation change that clearly defined exactly what the vehicles are and how they could be used.

Many e-scooter rental companies have operated with varying degrees of success and freedom across European cities in the last several years but the operations have been subject to much criticism too around issues like safety and parking.

These issues were at the heart of a referendum held in Paris last month that ultimately saw a relatively small number of voters turn out to cast their vote telling the companies to scoot out of their city. The e-scooter fleets by the three operators – Bolt is not one of them – will exit the city at the end of August.

"To my understanding it's also not possible because we have federal legislation, a referendum is not possible [in Berlin] or not from a legal perspective," Spörle added.

Bolt operates in Berlin alongside competitors Voi, Tier and Lime. It does not disclose the number of e-scooters it has in its fleet but the companies’ vehicles are never far from sight in the city center and surrounding neighborhoods.

Berlin authorities have attempted to integrate the companies’ scooters into the broader public transport network.

BVG, the main public transit company in the city, has launched the Jelbi app, which allows people to book public transport tickets, like trams and rail, as well as rent e-scooters.

Spörle said this is an attempt to make micromobility more fluid with the city's existing transport network.

Integrating multiple services into one app that is seamless is not an easy feat and one that other cities have attempted but with differing degrees of success.

As cities across Europe grapple with the best way forward for regulating e-scooters, Berlin may provide a framework of sorts to work from.

But that does not mean Berlin is immune from changes that could be afoot.

In Germany the concept of "verkehrswende", which refers to a push towards more sustainable and greener transportation, has gathered momentum but not without pushback from car-loving Germans.

E-scooters will factor into that debate when it comes to dealing with the volume of vehicles on the streets and the ever-present issues of safe parking.

Spörle said that city authorities should approach regulation with restrictions on the number of e-scooters in a city and not the number of operators, to ensure that there is health competition.

"[The industry] is still relatively young. We have a different economic environment than in the last two or three years. There's just not that much money around anymore. I would guess that in the next six to 12 months there is consolidation in the market."

That consolidation has already been seen in Berlin and more generally, such as embattled US e-scooter company Bird pulling out of the city amid its retrenching.

"I would expect more operators either leaving or maybe also joining [in mergers] so I think it's a very risky point of time from a city perspective to now decide on which operator should operate in their city," she said.

"That operator might not be there for much longer or if they decide they want to have two operators and then one leaves, they suddenly have a monopoly. We're such a young industry. We need the competition at the moment."

According to Spörle, Bolt expects its German e-scooter operations to be profitable by the end of this year. She added that Bolt benefits from many differences compared to its competitors that are only running e-scooters. Bolt also operates ride-hailing and car sharing.