Green light, red light for e-scooters: as Hong Kong promotes electric devices, Paris is banning the vehicles

Hong Kong is set to give electric bicycles and scooters the green light for use on cycle tracks in Tseung Kwan O and Pak Shek Kok. It will happen this year at the earliest, but the government will impose a speed limit.

Ringo Lee Yiu-pui is an adviser on the Transport Department’s electric mobility devices committee. Lee said authorities would allow electric scooters and bicycles on cycle tracks in Tseung Kwan O and Pak Shek Kok under a trial programme with strict restrictions. But hoverboards will be excluded as they lack brakes.

Lee said devices must weigh less than 20kg with their width not exceeding 65cm. Their speed must not exceed 25km/h.

They must also be equipped with a white front light, a red rear light, a red reflector, an effective braking system and an alarm warning device. The battery must fulfil European Union safety standards to avoid the possibility of leakage, overheating and sparking a fire while charging.

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“Distributors ... in Hong Kong will be the gatekeepers and make sure the products they import fulfil the requirements of the law before selling them,” Lee said.

He said the initial plan was to allow devices on cycle tracks while pavements and carriageways would be off-limits. Laws and penalties on the use of such devices would be governed by bicycle regulations.

Lee said authorities would consider charging and storage options when they became more popular.

Lee said the government was concerned about safety during the site trials and decided to set a speed limit referencing Singapore’s regulations.

Sai Kung district councillor Christine Fong Kwok-shan said she was open-minded about legalising such devices.

“It’s good to give alternative travelling options to Tseung Kwan O residents if the authorities have rules on using those devices. If there is a speed limit in place, I believe bicycle users will accept e-scooters when they use the cycling tracks together,” Fong said.

“Compared with other cities, we have a delay in developing e-travel devices which may be beneficial to the environment and reduce carbon footprints.”

Staff writer

Question prompts:

• Which groups do you think would welcome this trial scheme?

• What is the purpose of having a speed limit and rules such as those requiring an alarm warning device on electric bicycles and scooters?

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Question prompts:

• Identify THREE trends that can be seen in the graph.

• How is the government aiming to reduce issues with fires and accidents on the cycle tracks in Tseung Kwan O and Pak Shek Kok?

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• Parisians voted to banish for-hire electric scooters from the streets of the French capital

• Following Paris’s decision, Germany has called for tougher laws on the vehicles

Paris will ban for-hire electric scooters from September 1, the French capital’s mayor said, after the public voted to remove them from the streets early this month.

The e-scooter ban won 89 per cent of the votes in what was billed as a rare “public consultation” that prompted long queues at ballot boxes around the city even though turnout in the referendum was low at 7.46 per cent of registered voters.

City authorities once welcomed operators of app-based rental scooters with open arms, seeing them as an emissions-free alternative to cars and motorbikes.

But after a chaotic introduction in 2018, the city has progressively tightened regulations, creating designated parking zones, limiting the vehicles’ top speed and restricting the number of operators.

Following the Parisians’ vote against rental e-scooters, police officers in Germany joined calls for stricter rules for the vehicles. “Effective options for more safety must be examined, including higher fines, intensified instruction or an alcohol ban,” said Michael Mertens, the vice-chairman of the GdP police union.

Under any new requirements for e-scooters in Germany, rental companies should contribute to more road safety, Mertens said, calling also for new speed restrictions.

“E-scooters are too fast,” he warned, citing “serious consequences” of accidents even at 20km/h and proposing a reduction of the permissible speed to 15km/h. A sloppy driving and parking culture among users also needed addressing, Mertens said.

The minimum age for driving an e-scooter is 14 years and a driving licence is not required.

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The German Association of Cities has spoken out against a complete ban on e-scooters, but in favour of “clear rules of the game”.

Federal states should “give all cities the option of requiring a special use permit for e-scooters in public spaces”, said the association’s deputy chief executive Verena Göppert. Cities could then choose which providers may rent out scooters under which rules.

Allowing “geofencing” would automatically help to throttle the speed of scooters in areas like pedestrian zones, Göppert added.

Reuters, dpa and Agence France-Presse

Question prompts:

• Identify the main concerns about e-scooters mentioned in News.

• Based on your answer above, suggest how Hong Kong can avoid similar problems.

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• US capital has seen a rise in ridership in recent years and is looking to increase permits for devices

• Washington City Council passed new laws to stop rental e-scooters from littering pavements

While residents of Paris voted to get rid of electric rental scooters on its streets, Washington has seen a strong uptick in e-scooter use in recent years.

Russell Murphy, a spokesperson for the San Francisco-based company Lime, which operates e-bikes and e-scooters in both Paris and Washington, said it has made significant alterations to its product and policies to address rider and city needs.

They have also implemented automatic speed reductions and developed software that detects pavement riding and multiple riders, among other things.

Rental e-scooters were introduced to the US capital in 2018, and users plunged in the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. But by 2021, ridership was up and e-scooters provided an efficient alternative for those who wanted to avoid enclosed spaces on mass transit or in taxis. In November, Washington announced it would increase permits for rental e-scooters by up to 40 per cent.

Washington City Council also passed new regulations on e-scooters in 2020 – including a requirement that the vehicles have to be locked to a bike rack or signpost, or placed in a designated scooter park – after receiving complaints about the vehicles being left in inappropriate places.

Transport policy experts say any micromobility programme needs safe and adequate infrastructure to be in place and must be carefully managed with city regulations.

“New micromobility modes are coming out regularly, every few months, and there are types and sizes and forms of vehicles that we’ve never seen before,” said Sarah Kaufman, the interim director of New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation.

“Right now, cities are thinking in terms of cars, bikes and pedestrians, but we need to be thinking about the suite of micromobility devices that we haven’t even seen yet.”

Business Insider

Question prompts:

• Paris and Washington have different approaches to micromobility devices as reflected in News and Context. Which of the two is an environmentalist most likely to support, and why? Explain using your own knowledge.

• Refer to the last two paragraphs. What does Sarah Kaufman say about the future of micromobility devices and what governments around the world should be doing?

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1. electric scooter: a vehicle with two or three small wheels joined to the bottom of a narrow board and a vertical handle attached to the front wheel. Unlike a traditional scooter which is ridden by standing with one foot on the board and pushing against the ground with the other foot, it is powered by an electric motor.

2. e-scooter accidents in Paris and Germany: In 2021, 24 people died in scooter-related accidents in France, including one in Paris. Last year, Paris registered 459 accidents with e-scooters and similar vehicles, including three fatal ones. Around 2,100 accidents involving e-scooters were registered in Germany in 2020, rising to around 5,500 in 2021. Last year, around 7,600 people were injured from January to October, and 11 people died.

3. geofencing: the setting up of a virtual geographic boundary using software to trigger a response when a device enters or leaves a particular area

4. micromobility: transport using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service scheme in which people hire vehicles for short-term use within a town or city

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Context:

• Which groups do you think would welcome this trial scheme? Those who have reduced mobility, residents who live far away from mass transit centres, those who need to move between several nearby locations multiple times a day, and those who appreciate the added convenience of having another transport option

• What is the purpose of having a speed limit and rules such as those requiring an alarm warning device on electric bicycles and scooters? To ensure the vehicles are safe for both cyclists and pedestrians

Graph:

• Identify THREE trends that can be seen in the graph. There has been a significant decrease in the number of arrests, a slight decrease in the number of accidents and no noticeable changes in the number of fire-related incidents related to electric mobility devices between 2020 and 2022.

• How is the government aiming to reduce issues with fires and accidents on the cycle tracks in Tseung Kwan O and Pak Shek Kok? Size and speed limits as well as required equipment should reduce the number of accidents, and the battery must fulfil European Union safety standards because of the possibility of sparking a fire while charging.

News:

• Identify the main concerns about e-scooters mentioned in News. They cause serious road accidents even when driven at 20 km/h, users tend to not practise safe riding when using these devices, and lack of proper parking that increases sidewalk congestion.

• Based on your answer above, suggest how Hong Kong can avoid similar problems. The Transport Department can lower the speed limit, set stricter regulations such as requiring riders to pass a theory test before they can use their registered device, educate the public on the need to follow these regulations and provide designated parking spaces for these devices. (accept other reasonable answers)

Issue:

• Paris and Washington have different approaches to micromobility devices as reflected in News and Context. Which of the two is an environmentalist most likely to support, and why? Explain using your own knowledge. Environmentalists are most likely to support Washington’s approach of regulating e-scooters and integrating them into urban transport. They would also advocate for finding solutions to reduce street clutter instead of instituting an outright ban on rental e-scooters because these devices are an emissions-free alternative to cars and motorbikes.

• Refer to the last two paragraphs. What does Sarah Kaufman say about the future of micromobility devices and what governments around the world should be doing? Devices that are similar to e-scooters will be on the rise, and governments need to keep up with changes in technology, size and design so that they can plan cities and safety accordingly.