Madrid will introduce transport 'ban' across city with UK tourists warned

James Rodger
·2-min read

Madrid has moved to ban app-rented e-scooters over safety concerns. Lime, Dott and Tier Mobility licences are set to be cancelled from October due to issues with circulation and parking, the European Union holiday hotspot has warned.

Madrid will ban e-scooters rented through mobile apps after the city’s three licensed operators failed to implement limits on their clients’ circulation or to control their parking, the Spanish capital’s mayor has said today (Thursday September 5).

José Luis Martínez-Almeida said on Thursday the licences of Lime, Dott and Tier Mobility would be cancelled from October, adding that the city had no plans to grant new licences to any other operators. “The market was found to be incapable of meeting the requirements set by the mayor’s office to ensure the highest level of safety for citizens,” he said in a statement.

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Since May 2023, the Madrid city council had regulated the rental e-scooter market, only authorising Amsterdam-based Dott, Germany’s Tier Mobility and US-based Lime, whose scooters are available on Uber’s app.

They were authorised to rent 2,000 scooters each. In Spain, regulations governing the age when children can use electric scooters have been fixed by local authorities, so rules vary from town to town, with some authorities allowing children as young as 14 to use the two-wheelers, and others banning them for anyone under 16.

Ana Montalbán Navas, technical director of the Walking Cities Network, which defends the interests of pedestrians, said it was respect for pedestrians that mattered, more than the age of e-scooter users. “Whether they are 16 or under, what is important is the education and understanding that they should respect the rights of everyone who uses pavements and roads,” she told i.

The three operators were supposed to give the mayor’s office access to their data and were ordered to implement technology that forced customers to leave the scooters in authorised areas and prevented them from hiring scooters in pedestrian-only streets or near historic parks.

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