That is a general problem with the ride sharing with small transportation as well as with these stores: As long as you only reap the benefits it's less likely to see the problems associated and felt by others.
That's what we have laws for. Right now they're insufficient because the phenomenon is new and not widespread enough to urgently overhaul things for.
Just because, right now, there are problems and some people exploit the legal situation, that doesn't mean this is how it will always need to be if we are to keep small electric personal transportation devices as a concept.
Cars are way too dominant, even here in bicycle-friendly Netherlands, but these app-rental things don't change anything on that front.
Because most people still use a car for anything further than a few streets away, presumably. I'm not going to electric-scooter my way from Roermond/Weert to Eindhoven every day but I know a lot of people that drive or train-ride that distance daily (pre-pandemic).
Can't it be considered public transport as well if they're owned by a transportation company, to be used by the public, and not an individual? Right now it'll fall outside of laws that require things like accessibility for sure, but that's bound to change if this takes over as a better alternative to crowded buses.
If you have a link and/or some keywords I'd also be curious to read your source material btw!
Sure. But then you would have something that is actively managed and planned by the local municipal government (implemented by a commercial or semi-governmental public transport company). It wouldn't look like the current mess where coverage is decided exclusively on the basis of profitability, multiple companies battling for dominance in the same area, and externalities such as misuse of public space left completely unaddressed (because not technically illegal).
A proper solution that could be considered part of public transport would have rentable (e-)bicycles with fixed terminals to retrieve and return from/to. Like Citybike Wien or StadtRAD Hamburg.
> If you have a link and/or some keywords I'd also be curious to read your source material btw!
I read it in a column in NRC, the source referred to is this report by the Amsterdam municipality:
https://docplayer.nl/221773234-Tussentijdse-rapportage-deelv...
> In de open antwoorden wordt door gebruikers meerdere keren aangegeven dat het openbaar vervoer wordt gemeden vanwege besmettingsgevaar.
("In the open answers, multiple users indicate public transport is being avoided due to the contagion risk.")
So it's also partially a covid thing, but yeah I don't expect that this will be the majority. Personal transport is favored over mass transport by virtually everyone after all, everything else being equal.
Also interesting in relation to sibling comments is this part:
> Fout en hinderlijk parkeren is een vast onderwerp op de reguliere overleggen tussen gemeente en aanbieder. In de vergunnings-uitvraag is specifiek gevraagd om een klachtenafhandelingsplan. De vergunning verplicht de aanbieders om binnen een bepaalde tijd klachten af te handelen, waarbij beide aanbieders in hun klachtenafhandelingsplan hebben aangegeven dit nog sneller dan de gemeentelijke criteria te doen. In de eerste voortgangsrapportage (15 januari 2021) werd duidelijk dat dit door aanbieders is gehaald.
Loosely translated: incorrect parking is always an item on the agenda between municipalities and service providers. The permit to operate the service requires a complaint procedure to be in place and the processing speed requirements from the municipality were more than met in the first evaluation.
People seem to keep bringing this up, saying the scooters are a curse that would be eradicated from their city if it were up to them, not even considering that there could possibly be a fix for this. Well...
The problem is not that any specific moped is blocking the sidewalk for days on end, it is that there always some or several mopeds doing so — the mopeds involved vary, the problem doesn't.
Actually penalizing riders who misplace them might work, but there is no indication that the complaints procedures actually leads to these companies doing that (it is not a transparent process). They will pick out the worst offenders of course, but the people who rent these things are their paying customers; the rental companies have no economic incentive to actually punish the rider who put it there, quite the opposite!
(Edit: I'm not the downvoter. I don't agree but that doesn't make it a nonuseful perspective.)
Edit#2: Observing the votes on this comment, presumably from car lovers/haters, is quite interesting. Not sure it's a good sign if I wrote engaging but not generally agreeable content.