Trotinetas in Lisbon. City Hall and operators sign temporary agreement with new limits

While the promised one is not ready municipal regulation for shared micro-mobilitythe Lisbon City Hall and the scooter and bike sharing operators signed an agreement cooperation agreement in order to solve three problems identified by the municipality: o excessive number of vehicles present in the city, the multiple situations of abusive parking and the maximum speed circulation.

The signing of the agreement took place this Monday, January 9, in a small ceremony at the Paços do Concelho (Town Hall), which brought together several members of the executive and municipal services, the five operators with scooters and/or shared bikes in the city (Bolt, Bird, Lime, Whoosh, and LINK/SuperPedestrian), and the media. At the event, Carlos Moedas congratulated the companies present for having reached a "solid agreement" and said that he represents "the way I like to do politics, which is to sit people down at the table and work things out". "This agreement today means that we can do this without being in friction with each other. We are together, the city is ours, and we can resolve this situation."said the mayor.

What does the agreement establish?

The collaboration agreement between the Lisbon City Hall and the operators is temporary e will last until the municipal regulation, which is under preparation. This regulation will still have a public consultation phase at the beginning of this year and should only become "active" towards the end of 2023. It is expected that the rules now defined in this agreement will also appear in the future regulation, since it expresses the joint will of the municipality and the operators.

The agreement establishes three things:

• limits to the number of vehicles: In the winter period (from November 1st to March 31st), each of the five operators may have 1500 shared scooters; in the summer period (from April 1st to October 30th, this number may be 1750 vehicles. This means a limit of 7500 shared scooters or bikes in the winter and 8750 during the summer. In the case of bike sharing, there is a limit of 250 in the winter and 500 in the summer. Moedas said that there are currently "far more than 15,000 scooters"while Madrid only allows 6,000 scooters. GIRA, Lisbon's public bike sharing system, is not covered by these limits since it operates with docks and stations;
• mandatory parking spots: the municipality committed itself to deliver to the operators, within a maximum period of 60 days from the date this agreement was signed, a list/map of the locations where dockless shared scooters and bicycles can be dropped off. If users do not leave them at these points, the trip cannot be completedas is already the case with the use of many of these services. This system will work like in Porto, where the municipality has created several "sharing points" for scooters, the vast majority in car parking spaces. In Lisbon, the City Hall will define these "hotspots" in the bicycle parking spaces already created and that have been reinforced in recent months. Moedas stressed the urgency of freeing monuments and historic areas, accesses to the subway and public transportation stops, sidewalks and pedestrian squares from abusive parking of scooters, and said that this was "one of the first things" about which he heard complaints when he came to the position of mayor.
• new speed limit: the five operators committed to lowering the maximum speed of shared scooters and bicycles to 20 km/h. Moedas said that this was an area where "I wish I could have gone much further" and that the new speed limit was "a little lower"but recognized that "life is made of compromises". Since 2020, GIRA bikes have seen the levels of electric assistance lowered from five to three, which has led to a practical reduction of the maximum speed to just over 20 km/h. Stressing the importance of compliance with speed limits for all vehicles circulating in Lisbon, including cars, the Mayor of Lisbon pointed out that this reduction for shared micromobility "it's a very important step for safety and for our families. We all have children who ride these scooters and they often go above 25, reach 30 km/h". On the other hand, the circulation of scooters is prohibited in pedestrian areas and squares, and in urban gardens and parks except in exceptional cases (marked on site and in the applications).

Moedas wants to license scooters

Carlos Moedas explained that the agreement signed this Monday presents a major weakness: it only covers the five operators that are currently present in Lisbon. "A new company may come in and not respect this agreement"he explained. Therefore, he understands that "a mayor must be responsible for licensing this activity". The message has a clear recipient: the government.

The Mayor of Lisbon asks licensing of shared micromobility services - which currently it is the responsibility of the Institute of Mobility and Transport (IMT) according to the Decree-Law No. 181/2012 - pass to the City Councilsbecause it is "who is close to the populations and knows the territory". Without being able to directly license and regulate the activity of shared micromobility operators, City Councils will not be able to "act effectively".

The Mayor of Lisbon highlighted the role of the Municipal Director of Mobility, Ana Raimundo, in recognizing the need to regulate scooters in the city's public space, and also that of Filipe Anacoreta Correia, who has been in charge of the Mobility portfolio since the beginning of this year (before it was in the hands of councilman Ângelo Pereira, who remains in office but had his portfolio reduced). "The future of mobility we know what it is: have fewer cars, have more soft mobility. But the transition cannot be done in three strokes, where we find a huge friction between the various parties."said Moedas.

The Lisbon City Hall shared with Lisboa Para Pessoas a copy of the signed agreement.

Updated at 6:30 pm on 9/01/2023: added more details about the agreement.

Updated on 11/01/2023: rectified a reference to the absence of a moment for the media to ask questions at the ceremony.