The Parisians have decided. Or rather 4.2% of them. If the town hall of Paris listens to them, the fleets of the three electric scooter operators will disappear from the capital in September. This decision would be regrettable, however, believes Denis Saada, president and co-founder of Betterway, a startup that provides companies with a payment solution for sustainable mobility packages for employees. Not only does it run counter to what is happening in all major cities, but it could also encourage car use.
The Express: Today many cities, such as Lyon, Rome, London or Washington are improving or expanding shared electric scooter services. Wouldn’t stopping this service in Paris go against the grain of history?
Denis Saada: Absolutely. Major cities are all looking for carbon-free transport solutions. They also want to prevent citizens or employees from taking their car in the morning to go to work. But what we observe in Paris and more generally in Ile-de-France is not going in the right direction. There is of course this vote on scooters. But we also see that at the regional level, the installation of cycle paths is not going fast enough. The Charles-de-Gaulle Express site, which should put Roissy airport twenty minutes from the capital, is only halfway through. Finally, the four automatic metro lines in Greater Paris will probably not be ready in time for the Olympic Games. So today we have a real subject of mobility in Ile-de-France, which is the most frequented region in terms of the number of cars. At this stage, we are not moving fast enough in promoting new non-carbon mobility such as bicycles or scooters.
What would be the impact, for Parisian transport, of the disappearance of shared scooter fleets?
According to the operators of these fleets, 20 million scooter trips were recorded in Paris in 2022. However, according to INSEE, there would be more than 3 billion trips, all modes of transport combined, in the same area. The scooter would therefore only have a modest share (0.6%) in all trips. However, its role is important. Many employees use it when other means of transport fail. For example, during strike days, we observed an 82% increase in the use of scooters and shared mobility in general. These machines also serve as an alternative to the car or taxi when it comes to making short trips. Finally, they sometimes facilitate travel between home and the workplace. However, this criterion is more important than you might think: you should know that a third of resignations are linked to bad experiences in terms of commuting between home and work. If shared scooters end up being eliminated, make no mistake, there will be no massive transfer to cycling. Our data show that these two solutions do not have the same type of users. We will therefore have lost in the battle some citizens who wanted to move in a simple way and with the least possible impact on the city, whether in terms of carbon emissions or occupied surface. And it’s a safe bet that some users will unfortunately take the car back.
Are scooters still victims of received ideas?
Without a doubt. Today, more than 95% of scooters are parked correctly in dedicated spaces. I don’t think that’s the case with cars. In terms of accidents, the figures continue to drop. Finally, regarding the carbon footprint, we are no longer on “disposable” scooters. Current models have a lifespan of more than five years. In large cities, this means of transport remains much more efficient than a 2-tonne SUV. Make no mistake: in Paris, the mobility problem is not the scooter, but the car, the use of which must now be reduced. This is the real challenge for cities.