Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

More than 400% of uses compared to pre-lockdown months, around 7.600 rentals per day

Milan, August 18 2020 – The Municipality of Milan has increased the number of sharing scooters to 6 thousand, also authorizing the last possible company, Lime Technology.

The authorization came following the renunciation of the company Ride Hive Operations, for which the forfeiture was declared at the end of July, which therefore made it possible to install 750 new electric scooters, and the withdrawal of the appeal that Lime had presented for having been excluded from one of the public notices opened by the Administration. In recent days, a communication of renunciation has also arrived from Govolt, which had obtained authorization for 500 shared vehicles: with the acknowledgment of this communication the number will therefore settle at 6 thousand vehicles.

“I am pleased that today another significant step forward has been taken to guarantee an increasingly widespread service of shared scooters in Milan - declares the councilor for Mobility Marco Granelli -, also closing a legal dispute. Our objective is to make available to the city, in time for the autumn recovery, the maximum number of sustainable mobility opportunities, starting from public transport, which we have asked to be able to use to the maximum, because we want everyone to be able to move safely, without that the city is blocked by traffic. Let's imagine for just a moment that 50% of those who used public transport - 700.000 people - decided to use private cars: it would be harmful to everyone, citizens, businesses and the environment. And the strengthening of shared vehicles also goes in the same direction."

To date, scooter rentals are 400% more than in February 2020: around 7.600 rentals per day, for an average of 1,4 kilometers per rental and an average of 10 minutes of use. The sharing electric micromobility services of EM transit (Dott), LMTS Italy (Circ), Bird rides Italy (Bird), Voi technology Italia (Voi), Wind mobility (Wind), Bit mobility (Bit) are operational in the city. Helbiz Italia (Helbiz) and, from the next few weeks, Lime technology.

Following the national legislation in force, electric scooters can circulate throughout the municipal territory on roads with a speed limit of 50 km/h, on extra-urban roads, on cycle paths, always maintaining a maximum speed of 25 km/h on the road and 6 km /h in pedestrian areas, not on sidewalks.

“To guarantee safe mobility for those who choose means of gentle mobility - concludes Granelli - we are creating many new kilometers of protected routes and itineraries for bicycles and scooters: in recent months we have completed six new cycle paths, another six construction sites are active and another eight are are opening in these days, including the Cerchia dei Navigli cycle path and the Viale Monza cycle path. Precisely on Viale Monza, in the last 9 years, over 1.400 people have been injured in road accidents, of which 69% were pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. There are therefore two appeals that I want to make for the restart: the first to use private cars as little as possible and public transport and two wheels, whether owned or shared, as much as possible; the second to always respect the Highway Code, regardless of the means of transport chosen".

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