Five Zug municipalities go their own ways

The fast two-wheeled e-scooters don't make everyone happy in the canton. In the future, Zug only wants to have one provider of e-scooters. In the meantime, the council in Cham will ban them from the municipality from 1^st January 2024.

“Evasive manoeuvre ended in the hospital,” wrote the Zug Police in a media release last Wednesday, 27th September. A man on an e-scooter swerved to avoid an animal in Baar and then fell to the ground, sustaining significant injuries as a result. It’s not possible to rent an e-scooters in Baar, so it can therefore be assumed that the injured person was travelling on his own mobile vehicle.

The policy regarding e-scooters is inconsistent within the canton of Zug. In the Risch district of Rotkreuz, fast two-wheelers are only allowed north of the railway station, and Cham is cancelling the exercise at the end of the year, while the City of Zug is re-tendering the concession from 2023. Baar, as the fourth municipality requested, has had a ban on rental two-wheelers with electric drives since 2020. Hünenberg has banned e-scooters from the very start.

It is already clear to the City of Zug that the provider will have to adapt to stricter rules. There are currently two companies (Tier and Lime) vying for customers. From next year onwards, only one of them will be able to offer their e-scooters to the public.

The city wants to precisely define parking locations for e-scooters
As the city's security chief Barbara Gysel explains, the parking location of motorised two-wheelers will be precisely defined from 2024. This restriction will work thanks to GIS (Geographic Information System) data. The responsible provider must feed this into the approximately 200 e-scooters in the city from 1^st January 2024.

Random parking, which is currently causing quite some annoyance, will be prevented by another software-based tool. Zug city councillor (Stadträtin) Barbara Gysel explains this tool as follows: if someone parks the scooter outside a designated parking area, then “the user will no longer be able to deregister the e-scooter in the app.” The result: the rental period will continue to run. And this automatic process cannot be stopped.

Tier e-scooters parked properly in a traffic area in the city of Zurich            Photo: Patrick B. Kraemer
 

The city councillor also mentions that the e-scooter system can always be adapted, and all people renting e-scooters will still be obliged to comply with the regulations of the current road traffic legislation. In addition, the charging energy should be from a green source.

Different perspectives in the Zug municipalities
Cham has taken a different path. As the municipality writes in a media release, it no longer wants to grant permits for e-scooters “for reasons of safety and public order”. The local councillor Drin Alaj, who is responsible for transport, cites feedback in the areas of “order in public spaces” and “obstruction of weaker road users” as the reasons for cancelling the exercise.

When preparing the decision, Drin Alaj didn't just rely on hearsay; he also drove around on such two-wheelers himself. He was interested in this because of his job. The local council believed that this means of transport “could be a useful addition to existing means of transport”..

The dwindling acceptance experienced in Cham has thereby led to the municipality deciding not to continue with the e-scooter project.

The future of e-scooters is still open in Risch
The authorities responsible for the Ennetsee municipality of Risch have met after the scooter season. Electric scooters are currently permitted north of the railway station, and can only be picked up and deposited at certain defined locations.

The deputy municipal clerk Peter Stöckli informs that this practice keeps down the number of e-scooters that are parked just anywhere. Risch is therefore faced with the decision as to whether these fast means of transport will continue to be part of Rotkreuz's streetscape in the future. If the decision is positive, the e-scooters could also be used south of the railway station.

As City Councillor Barbara Gysel says, the City of Zug has encouraged cooperation with other municipalities “but cooperation could not be achieved, however, due to different balancing of interests and needs”.