Private scooters are at a disadvantage
The development of a network of paths, parking lots and other infrastructure for bicycles and scooters will likely affect the whole of Russia. The order to develop the appropriate infrastructure is contained in the road map of the Russian Government — urban planning standards should appear in the summer of next year. Thus, the authorities still prefer the development of safe driving infrastructure to banning SIM in cities. MK found out what facilities will appear as part of the new state program and whether it will improve safety on the streets.
The first component of the infrastructure for SIM, the standards of which should be worked out by the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Transport by next summer, is a network of bicycle paths that will separate the flow of pedestrians from SIM and bicycles. This is stated in the government roadmap for the development of infrastructure for these types of transport. Thus, for the first time in recent months, development measures, rather than new restrictions on the movement of electric scooters and other means of “small transport”, have become public knowledge.
Along with paths, departmental projects will also have to contain standards for parking spaces, rules for storing and parking SIM cards, and land allocations for their arrangement. From the documents that the government will present to legislators next summer, it will become clear what density of “saturation” of electric scooters in the cities of the present and future the state considers acceptable.
The next stage of work on infrastructure development will be the decisions of the regions — based on federal projects, the authorities of the constituent entities, within just two months after their publication, will have to create their plans for the creation and integration of infrastructure for SIM into city transport systems. Let us recall that until now the development of this infrastructure has been purposefully carried out only in Moscow and several other largest cities, and this is often an initiative of commercial kick-sharing operators (renting electric scooters).
“The roadmap has an emphasis on the development of the micromobility industry and the conditions for it,” comments a representative of one of the large rental operators. — Specifics, obviously, will appear later. In the meantime, we can say that the best solution, taking into account the movement of SIM and pedestrians, is the development of bicycle infrastructure.
According to MK’s interlocutor, it is now extremely important to fix the rules for the joint presence of SIM and pedestrians on the sidewalk, which take into account the interests and safety of both groups. Let us remind you that it is precisely because of the proximity of scooters to pedestrians on the sidewalks that most emergencies involving SIMs occur, and the very first package of regulations relating to “small transport” contained a speed limit in pedestrian zones to pedestrian speeds.
Traffic rules it is necessary to clarify and specify, as well as the responsibility of violators, the service added. “Kicksharing services deal with their violators: there is a system of fines for violating the rules, the ability to track devices during incidents, but private SIMs should also be within the law,” a company representative emphasized.
A separate point of tension in the relationship between scooter riders and other citizens is parking for “small vehicles.” “For the transport scenario of using SIM parking, you need a lot of parking so that citizens can conveniently get to their destination and leave their scooter there,” explained the kick-sharing service. “That’s why we’re pursuing a streamlined but quick-to-build option—virtual parking lots marked in the app.” In the future, such parking lots may become a unified urban infrastructure, including for owners of private bicycles and scooters.
At the same time, the fact that the program will not be limited to large cities is a big advantage, the company explained. “The development of infrastructure is justified throughout the country, since it aims to make movement comfortable and safe,” said MK’s interlocutor. — In addition to sharing, in cities there are cyclists, owners of private SIM cards, and so on. So this initiative will have a positive impact on areas adjacent to sharing.”
Perhaps a system for monitoring traffic violations by scooter riders will be included in the infrastructure development plans — there is talk about it at both the regional and federal levels. Kicksharing already has the ability to track the location of each device and the profile of its driver using navigation beacons. It remains to introduce this standard for private scooters that can be identified. Representatives of two electric scooter rental operators surveyed by MK also proposed extending to private SIMs the rules on mandatory firmware for “quiet zones” and other speed limits according to traffic rules.
But if there are ways to “harness” millions of private electric scooters into the digital field of responsibility just as kicksharing has already been integrated there, are not yet too obvious — SIM cards sold to this day in Russia do not have protected serial numbers, like cars and motorcycles, and for all-out raids in megacities there may not be enough police officers, then bold projects led — and scooter tracks are quite to be expected. For example, the idea of a bicycle network, first proposed in the USSR about 45 years ago by engineer Paul Raikin, may emerge from oblivion. The concept envisages a network of covered off-street galleries through which you can quickly and easily travel from one part of the city to another on bicycles (or, let’s add, electric scooters). This would solve, say, the problem of the almost insurmountable Third Transport Ring for two-wheelers. If, of course, there is enough money for such ambitious projects now.