Bordeaux Métropole has just designated six winning companies of the AMI (call for expressions of interest), now the only ones authorized to provide free-floating machines on its territory. These are Bird and Pony for bicycles, Dott and TIER for electric scooters and E-Dog and Yego for scooters. That is half as many operators as currently.
Exit Lime, Cityscoot, Voi and others, since out of 11 listed operators a few months ago by Bordeaux Métropole, it finally selected six who agreed to enter its “new framework for free-floating services”.
This is for Bird bicycles, authorized to deploy 750 VAE (electrically assisted bicycles) and Pony, for 550 VAE and 200 mechanical bicycles. Dott and TIER will each be able to offer 750 electric-assisted scooters. E-Dog and Yego have the green light for 250 electric scooters.
“In concrete terms, this translates into more vehicles made available (+ 750 scooters, + 200 bicycles and + 100 scooters) and more municipalities concerned (24 against only Bordeaux previously), indicates this Wednesday the metropolis in a press release. Commissioning is scheduled for early November. »
Controlled parking
In return, the winners will have to submit to a few obligations, including limiting the speed of their machines and especially the borrowing and depositing of these by the customer of the dedicated spaces, a source of numerous conflicts of use on the roadway.
“As the supply develops, 150 new locations, in addition to the 100 existing ones, will be marked on the roads in Bordeaux, and 250 others will be created and distributed over the 23 new candidate municipalities for the device”, indicates the metropolis. This will set up a “control and monitoring platform to verify compliance with the commitments of users and operators”.
“Unique approach”
According to the community, this is a “unique approach at the national level, since it concerns the entire metropolitan urban area”… except cities like Talence or Blanquefort who have in fact refused to associate themselves with this MAI.
In 2017, when companies began to compete for the free-floating market, the metropolis had initially set up in May 2019 a charter of commitments to which operators had to adhere, in particular in order to free up public space and limit the number of vehicles.
This frankly did not satisfy everyone, but there was no question of banning these private services. Bordeaux Métropole wanted to “better manage a service appreciated by residents and tourists” and “develop soft mobility and alternatives to the car”.