Vienna to put heavy regulations on e-scooters

The city will limit the number of these two-wheelers in the centre to 500, in order to push companies to service residential areas as well

Last week, Vienna announced plans for heavy regulations on the local e-scooter ecosystem. Officials have partnered up with traffic authorities to limit scooters, as well as push ride-sharing providers to cover more parts of the city.

One of the big takeaways from the propositions is limiting the number of scooters in the city centre to a maximum of 500. This would be a severe restriction considering that currently there are around 1,500 scooters parked in Vienna’s inner city.

According to City Councilor for Mobility, Ulli Sima, this type of mobility is very useful for last-leg journeys and authorities are trying to position them in metro stops in residential areas. Additionally, because of the increasing traffic incidents, they also plan to subject scooters to stricter traffic rules, age restrictions and speed limits.

The new regulations are set to come into effect in May 2023, while the local council will vote on the package of measures in December.

Limiting e-scooters

One of the big aims of this policy push is to move e-scooter offers away from the city centre and integrate them more seamlessly into the fabric of urban transport. For this reason, a very important point is that with the new regulations, parking on sidewalks would be forbidden.

This is because turning Vienna’s sidewalks into scooter parking spaces just takes away space from pedestrians. Instead, the city will set up special parking zones. Moreover, the city will not go after individual citizens who violate the policy – instead, they will leave that part to the companies.

However, official sources also say that if a company has too many repeat violations, the city might revoke their license to operate in Vienna, considering them an unreliable partner.

Furthermore, authorities plan to limit e-scooter speed to 20 kilometres per hour instead of the current 25. Also, there would be an age limit - children under the age of 12 would not be able to rent them. Local authorities point out that this is a lax law, compared to Germany’s age limit of 14.

According to data from local traffic authorities, the KfV, in 2018 when the scooters were still new, there were 1,025 injuries and 17 deaths related to accidents. In 2021, however, that number changed to 2,560 injured and 24 dead, prompting the government’s response.