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 🇬🇧 Britain's E-Scooter Groundhog Day

The UK's rental e-scooter programme was never supposed to last this long. Launched in July 2020 as a pandemic-era solution, the trials were designed to run for twelve months. Six years and five extensions later, they run until May 2028, with a second national evaluation still underway.

The constraints operators face have no equivalent elsewhere in Europe:
◾️Riders must hold a driving licence.
◾️Speed is capped at 12.5 mph (~19.3 km/h) — below the Department for Transport's own 15.5 mph (~24.1 km/h) guidance.
◾️Age restrictions are set at 18-plus.
◾️No-go and go-slow zones fragment operating areas into a patchwork that makes usage and operations fragmented and less efficient.
The system was clearly built for caution, not scale - and it shows.

Why hasn't legislation followed? Despite high expectations, e-scooter regulation was absent from successive King's Speeches, meaning legislation would be delayed. The government has said it supports it "when parliamentary time allows." That phrase has been doing work for four years.

The UK needs to wake up!

It is in this frustrating context that Voi's VP for Northern Europe Christina Moe Gjerde, steps in with a warning hard to misread. Speaking to The i Paper, she was direct: if the government extends the trials again without introducing proper legislation, Voi will walk away. "The UK e-scooter trial has been running for too long. We're screaming out for a direction, we're screaming for a strategy."

This frustration is commercial, not ideological. Operators cannot justify investing in next-generation vehicles or infrastructure upgrades without knowing whether they'll still be operating in two years. "In Europe, you have new hardware, new software, new technology — all the newest innovations coming in. Whereas the UK is the opposite."

Voi is not the first to reach this conclusion. Dott withdrew from London's e-scooter trial in 2024, citing the regulatory mismatch between e-scooters and the 35,000-plus e-bikes operating on the same streets with lighter oversight. Christina Moe Gjerde also pointed to Zipcar's recent exit from London as a symptom of the same structural issue: a market where the rules make sustainable operation structurally difficult.

The viability problem is fundamental. Trial rules add cost and complexity while limiting the product. You cannot plan fleet investment on an 18-month horizon, justify new hardware that might be stranded at the next extension, or compete with shared e-bikes that face far fewer restrictions.

What to expect?

Voi is not a peripheral player. It operates in nearly 20 UK towns and cities and accounts for around two-thirds of all rental e-scooter journeys in the country. Its departure would not thin out a crowded market — it would effectively end UK shared e-scooter services as a functioning sector. Lime operates primarily through e-bikes since the West Midlands transition. Bolt covers select cities. There is no obvious replacement for Voi's footprint.

But the government has made some moves. The English Devolution Bill would give cities powers to license shared micromobility. A second national evaluation due in 2026 is expected to feed into a permanent framework. Christina Moe Gjerde is pushing for legislation in the next King's Speech — likely after May's local elections — which she calls the last realistic parliamentary window in this government's term.

The expected legislative content would create a new Low-Speed Zero Emission Vehicle category covering both rental and private e-scooters, with unified rules on speed, age, insurance, and technical standards. The government has signalled as much… What it hasn't provided is a date.

That ambiguity is the problem. Voi has invested over £100 million in the UK since 2020. Had permanent regulation existed, that figure would have been higher — in line, Voi's VP for Northern Europe says, with what Voi has been able to commit in Germany and Sweden. Instead, the UK remains the only market in Voi's European portfolio where long-term planning is impossible. At some point, patience stops being a strategy, and becomes a decision.

🔒 Docked Out

Trento is the latest city to pull the plug on a docked public bike-share system. The Italian province’s e.motion service — launched in 2014 with 420 bikes — will shut down in 2026. Usage has fallen sharply since 2023, dropping from a peak of 100,000 annual rentals to barely 30,000 in 2024. At that level, the infrastructure costs no longer make sense, and the local authority is now turning toward private, dockless alternatives.

It’s a familiar script. Stockholm went through a similar transition: from JCDecaux’s station-based system, to a troubled public dockless model that collapsed in 2023, and now to a permit-based approach with private operators. In Nantes, the Naolib system — 1,200 bikes across 125 stations since 2008 — will follow the same path when its contract expires in January 2027.

From a city finance perspective, the logic is hard to challenge. Station-based systems require heavy infrastructure — docks, civil works, electrical connections — resulting in high upfront and operational costs. Shifting that capital burden to private operators, through free-floating or virtual hub models, reduces investment needs and allows for more flexible scaling. For cities under budget pressure, it can become the only way to maintain a bike-sharing service.

The impact looks different from the user’s perspective. Public bike-share systems are built around access: subsidised tariffs, full network coverage, integration with public transport, and explicit equity goals. Private free-floating services, by contrast, are optimised for utilisation and revenue. The social contract of public mobility — a bike within a few minutes walk, at an affordable price — risks quietly disappearing behind a private app.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Bolt
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CITY UPDATES 🌐

Bari (IT) | The public transport operator offers 300 bike helmets to its members.

Berlin (DE) | Berlin-Mitte (DE) district collected €400,000 in fines for improperly parked scooters.

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INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Multiple operators have implemented reaction tests to comply with the new regulation in Latvia (LV).

Bolt’s Riding Score in now available in Slovakia (SK).

Cachet partners with Baloise LU to provide an adaptative insurance solution for Turo’s development in France (FR).

Dott invests €2m in Milan (IT) and €3m in Lyon (FR) to upgrade its scooter fleets.

JCDecaux has to retrofit its entire fleet in Besançon (FR) with new rear wheels.

pony expands its partnership with La Poste to Nice (FR).

Tazı has upgraded its system in Çorum (TR) with a new app and rental process.

Check launches Check Connect to target vulnerable customer groups.