Melbourne City Council has decided to terminate contracts with two e-scooter operators, Lime and Neuron, and has given them 30 days to remove their vehicles.

“This was an opportunity to end the chaos on Melbourne’s sidewalks and make our city safe again,” said Melbourne Mayor Nicolas Reece in a press conference on Wednesday, August 14.

In December 2023, the Royal Melbourne Hospital released a report identifying 256 cases of injuries related to e-scooter use, including one death.

Melbourne is not the only city currently considering its approach to electric scooter rental.

Paris, once one of Europe’s largest cities for e-scooters, has decided to ban rented e-scooters from 2023. Copenhagen imposed a ban in 2020 but lifted it a year later and introduced stricter rules. Barcelona has partially banned the use of e-scooters in historic parts of the city since 2016.

In London, private electric scooters remain illegal on public roads, but three operators have been running trial rentals since 2021. In Rome, authorities tightened regulations on the use of electric scooters in 2022 following a series of incidents involving damage to cultural heritage.

The issue of renting electric scooters is also being actively discussed in Kazakhstan. Recently, a petition was launched calling for a ban on renting. The initiators of the petition point to safety problems, chaotic parking and violations of traffic rules, which makes the use of electric scooters in public places potentially dangerous.

The biggest problems with riding electric scooters currently occur in Astana, Almaty and Karaganda.

Since the beginning of the year, there have been 463 accidents involving e-scooters and mopeds in Almaty, in which 500 people were injured and seven were killed. In 68 cases, children were at the wheel of the vehicle.