‘Unplug shared electric scooter, experiment failed’

For several years, the municipality has been experimenting with different forms of partial transport. The shared electric scooter was introduced with the idea that it offers a greener alternative to the most polluting car and thus also reduces the number of cars on the road.

But after a few years of experimentation, it is clear that the shared scooter is mainly used to replace public transport and the bicycle. Most people who use a shared scooter make short trips in central parts of the city. The numbers also show that it’s mostly an easy way to get from Zuidas to the center, a distance you can also cover easily by bike. It’s time to end this experiment.

Exclusive

Shared scooters barely guarantee that polluting cars drive less. It also does not help people for whom public transport is too expensive: the high costs make shared scooters inaccessible. Furthermore, a quick glance at the map of the shared transport offer shows that shared scooters are almost exclusively available within the Ring. They therefore offer no solution for neighborhoods where public transport is less available.

Unfortunately, under current permits, the municipality has few options to manage the shared scooter policy. The city has little to say about the type of scooter that is offered and how it is charged, repaired and recycled. That’s exactly where you can tell the difference between a truly sustainable alternative and a luxury product. Research even shows that a shared electric scooter is twice as polluting as a scooter for private use due to its short lifespan.

The municipality also currently has only limited influence on supplier prices and the distribution of scooters. In this way, we will not achieve our goals of making transport in the city more sustainable, affordable and accessible.

Parked antisocially

Scooters create a lot of nuisance for residents. Alarms make a lot of noise and often get in the way on the sidewalk. The latter in particular is problematic: think of people in wheelchairs or elderly people who already have difficulty getting around in many places. But the #felyxchallenge – the hashtag used to share photos of parked scooters antisocially – is also a well-known concept among parents with strollers or other pedestrians.

Our public space is scarce. To protect this space, we must make difficult choices. As far as we are concerned, we are not opting for shared scooters, but we are focusing on additional shared electric bikes and making them more widely available in the city. And it is clear that the experiment to make transport in Amsterdam more sustainable and social by means of shared scooters did not succeed.

It is therefore remarkable that there is now a proposal to convert this experience into a fixed policy and to double the number of shared scooters in the city. We see – at the expense of our precious public space – a number of businesses taking advantage of it in particular, residents are doing little. Disconnect the plug from the shared scooters.

Marius Troost, Chair of the GroenLinks Amsterdam Sustainability Working Group, Elisabeth IJmker, GroenLinks Amsterdam Board Member