The Madrid authorities have announced that they will revoke the operation licenses of Lime, Dott, and Tier-three companies renting e-scooters. This means that the e-scooters will disappear from the streets of the Spanish metropolis.
According to a statement by the local council and revealed Thursday by the city’s mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, all three companies failed to obey the conditions of their permits issued in May of this year.
It said that the corporations impeded their efforts to investigate their operations by denying them necessary information or permission to access their interfaces. Still, it was found that they had breached the terms of the licenses.
It said, “Included among such failures are the lack of technology that prevents vehicles from circulating or parking in banned areas and the lack of any insurance policy for them, and the absence of any services throughout the city.”
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Three operators were chosen to provide e-scooter hires in the capital: Lime, Dott, and Tier-all, which could rent out 2,000 scooters each. The council had ruled that “rental scooters will disappear from the city from October.”
It added: “The companies will have 20 days from the start of the administrative procedure of revocation of the license to appeal”.
Dott received an official communication from Madrid city hall on Thursday, a company spokesperson told CNN on Monday.
The spokesperson added, “We are presently analyzing the situation of the shared e-scooters service and are awaiting a meeting with Madrid municipality prior to taking any decision.”
“We do believe that a constructive dialogue with the municipality is possible in order to understand the motivations behind the announced resolution so that we can deal with them accordingly and maintain a positive mobility service for the benefit of Madrilenian citizens and visitors,” the spokesperson added.
A Lime spokesperson said the company believed “the stated grounds for this decision were misplaced” and was “disappointed by this surprise move.” “We look forward to continuing discussions with the Council to ensure service can continue, and we will explore ways to support our riders in Madrid to ensure they have access to safe, affordable, and sustainable transport options,” he said.
CNN has reached out to Tier for an answer as well. Mayor Martínez-Almeida stated in the statement that the Madrid council would not be granting any further operating permits for e-scooters “because it has been demonstrated that the market cannot meet the necessary requirements established by the council that guarantee the highest level of citizen safety possible.”
According to the city hall website, private electric scooters are still permitted in the city.
Madrid is not the first city to take action against the increasingly contentious rental of e-scooters.
Melbourne, Australia, banned the rental of e-scooters in August due to safety concerns raised by hundreds of complaints and accident reports.
According to reports at a news conference, Melbourne Mayor Nicholas Reece stated, “This was an opportunity to end the havoc on Melbourne’s footpaths and make our city safe again.”
Additionally, in April 2023, Parisians voted to outlaw the rental of electric scooters in the French metropolis. The ordinance went into effect at the end of August, when the scooter operators’ contracts ended.
