Perspectives

Greener and more sustainable transportation options, like e-scooters and other micromobility solutions, have rapidly proliferated across the European Union (EU). However, this growth has brought to light a significant challenge: regulatory fragmentation. Unlike traditional modes of transport, micromobility is governed by a patchwork of regulations that vary significantly among EU Member States.

For instance, discrepancies in speed limits, age restrictions, helmet requirements, and parking regulations create a convoluted landscape for users and operators alike. Some of the issues causing such fragmentation include:

• Speed limits: Some countries in the EU, like the Netherlands, impose speed limits while others like Hungary or Bulgaria have no formally established speed limits.
• Age restrictions: Age limits to use e-scooters, for example, vary significantly – some countries, including Austria and France, require riders to be at least 12 years old, while others, such as Italy, set the minimum age at 18.
• Helmet and safety requirements: While some places mandate helmets for minors, for example, Austria, Czech Republic or France, most EU countries have no rules for mandatory use of helmets.
• Parking regulations: Rules for parking also vary across EU countries, with some (Belgium, for example) requiring e-scooters to be parked in designated stations and others allowing for parking on bike paths, but not sidewalks, like Germany.
• Insurance requirements: Insurance policies can vary from jurisdictions requiring companies to offer insurance for users as it happens in France or Germany, to others leaving the responsibility to the users themselves. For example, Denmark and Spain have no compulsory insurance rules.

These represent some of the challenges, but they are by no means exhaustive. Other regulatory issues include questions around the integration of micromobility with public transport networks, licensing needs or differences between ownership and renting models, for example.

Ultimately, the lack of uniformity not only complicates compliance for micromobility operators but also leads to confusion for users, who may encounter differing rules in each city they visit.  To foster a thriving micromobility industry, it is crucial to explore the broader implications of regulatory fragmentation and advocate for a more harmonized framework across the EU.

Fragmentation and Innovation in Micromobility

The regulatory fragmentation outlined above isn’t just an annoyance – it poses serious challenges to innovation, especially within the micromobility sector. For both homegrown companies as well as foreign ones looking to enter the EU market, a lack of regulatory cohesion has consequences across scaling, compliance, and the ability to develop solutions that prioritize safety and long-term thinking.

Due to fragmented rules across regions, players in the micromobility space face unnecessarily high compliance costs. Adjusting speed limits, safety requirements, and parking regulations country-by-country, or even city-by-city, consumes time and resources that could otherwise go toward research and development for example. This affects small startups most dramatically, making the barrier to entry for smaller players almost insurmountable, but it also deters larger, foreign players from entering the EU and then expanding to multiple Member States, as adapting to multiple regulations can be prohibitively costly even for them. In turn, the fragmentation ultimately limits competition and user choice, as well as investment into the EU with potential for local jobs and technology sharing, preventing European markets from benefiting from global advancements in micromobility.

Meanwhile, fragmented regulations also delay the deployment of new technologies, like AI-driven safety features or data-sharing for improved infrastructure planning, as the various systems are not set up to “talk” to each other. The EU is taking steps toward addressing this challenge through initiatives like the European Mobility Data Spaces (EMDS), which aim to create standardized frameworks for data-sharing across transportation modes. However, many of these technologies rely on standardization for their effective development. For example, data-sharing initiatives between micromobility providers and city governments could enhance road safety and urban transportation efficiency but require regulatory clarity and cohesion to function effectively.

With fragmented rules, cities and companies can’t strategically implement such technologies on a broad scale, slowing down advancements that could make micromobility safer and more user friendly, and instead leaving an otherwise promising industry to struggle to find its path.

The Need for a Unified Framework

To accelerate innovation, a more harmonized EU regulatory framework is essential. Reducing fragmentation would enable micromobility companies to operate seamlessly across borders, driving competition, investment, and, ultimately, improvements in user experience.

While all these barriers to growth would ideally be eliminated, to allow for more targeted and impactful advocacy campaigns, focusing on areas of EU regulatory competency and issues where there is already convergence between Member States first is essential to achieve tangible results. These include standardization, e-scooter classification, licensing needs, and age limits, for example. Other barriers, like speed limits or restrictions on rental services are more sensitive to national and local rules and conditions and may be more difficult and lengthy to harmonize.

Given the current EU regulatory environment, is a good time for e-scooter companies to proactively advocate to help shape the future of micromobility in Europe. At Trilligent, we provide guidance and strategic insights for those seeking to navigate EU regulatory fragmentation and its impact, as well as engage in the public debate to simplify some of this complexity in the name of innovation