SEOUL DESIGNATES ‘NO SCOOTER RETURN’ ZONES

[Anchor Lead]

Electric scooters left unattended on the streets are causing inconveniences to the public. The Seoul city government has designated crosswalks or subway station entrances as no scooter return zones from today. When a scooter is found abandoned in such an area, e-scooter service providers will be given one hour to collect it before it is towed away.

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Traffic is heavy near this crosswalk. When a rider tries to park a shared electric scooter, a no-return message pops up. From now on riders will no longer be able to return their e-scooters at such crowded locations.

[Soundbite] Choi Young-ho(E-scooter Service Provider) : "E-scooters have clearly obstructed pedestrians. So the industry is making voluntary efforts to solve such problems."

Since last July, the Seoul city government has been towing shared electric scooters and sending the bill to scooter-sharing service providers. In just seven months since this measure was implemented, the number of abandoned e-scooter reports has dropped by more than half. But related firms have been complaining that no-parking areas are not clearly defined and that towing costs too much. Recognizing such problems, the city government designated subway station entrances, bus stops and crosswalks as tow zones where e-scooters cannot be returned. When a violation is reported, however, service providers are given one hour to collect unattended scooters. Scooter-sharing businesses will also have to implement a GPS-based system that automatically blocks riders from leaving their scooters in the no-return zones. Users that park in the tow zone will be imposed with penalties such as riding suspension depending on the number of violations.

[Soundbite] Baek Ho(Urban Transport Team, Seoul Metropolitan Gov’t) : "The industry should make voluntary efforts to induce riders to improve their behaviors while the city gov't tries to make e-scooters more widespread through system improvement."

Seoul City also decided to propose a bill that shifts the current report system to a registration system in order to better manage shared e-scooters.