The electric scooter is a means of transport that has attracted hundreds of thousands of city dwellers in recent years. Sales are exploding and the micro mobility market is booming. This new mode of travel must now find a place in the public space. Example in Rouen (Seine-Maritime).

For three years, they have invaded city centers in France. Small and handy, electric scooters have managed to find an increasingly important place alongside bicycles and other scooters. From year to year, they have established themselves in the urban landscape and seduce more and more city dwellers like Andy:“Frankly it’s a very easy means of transport for transport it’s very suitable, it’s very fast » .

The scooter is a means of transport that saves time and this is the argument that comes up the most. Summer and winter, users prefer it to public transport and its use is multiple: “I live in Darnétal I’m going to work in Petit Quevilly so I have about 15 km to do. By using cycle paths as much as possible. Before I took about an hour now I take 20 minutes ” Appreciates Amaury.

But the scooter is obviously suitable for short distances and therefore for urban travel: “I go shopping, see friends or other as I live in town in general most of my journeys are less than 5 km. The scooter is for me almost the best solution. It doesn’t cost gas, electricity is still less expensive and well, it’s a bit ecological all the same” testifies this thirty-year-old met in Rouen.

To meet the demand for new sales and repair shops opened in Normandy. In October, this brand decided to open a store in Rouen. Previously its activity was focused on seasonal rentals on the coast. “We did a market study and we saw in fact that soon in the near future, the means of transport were going to completely change and that we were going to move towards green, therefore electric. Short distances will be seen differently and perhaps people will go towards this mode of travel as a thermal car » Lila Haddouche, store manager « Modern Trott »

This micro-mobility is booming: every year in France half a million electric scooters are sold.

Has the car in the city center had its day? This is what Antoine and Arthur think, who also talk about the price of petrol, speed limits of 30 km per hour and traffic jams. For them there is no doubt: the scooter is the future! This is why these young self-employed entrepreneurs have embarked on the repair niche: “we said to ourselves that we were going to start repairing the scooters of the friends of the friends here because we a obviously we have lots of friends who have some like ourselves we were enthusiastic. We see that in fact there was perhaps a business to do in it so we actually started posting ads on the right corner and so we started having more and more customers and even more since on our website » Antoine Mascret co-founder of Turn Shop.

For the moment, the two friends are working in a 3 x 4 meter cellar. Even if their visibility is not optimal for the moment, the beginnings are rather promising: “On big days we can repair up to 6 scooters but given where we are today it doesn’t help us to ask we are rather very happy with the result says Arthur Top, co-founder of Turn Shop.

Very practical from the point of view of users, the scooter does however have a bad image. Accidents, sometimes fatal, are on the rise. Many consider it dangerous and it scares pedestrians: “It bothers me a little in the sense that the scooters are on places where there are pedestrians often it’s annoying because in addition they push us, they don’t pay attention with the children I find it very annoying » . Pedestrians are demanding better supervision of this new form of mobility and users themselves are asking for more cycle paths. In any case, it is not easy for everyone to find their place in the urban space. At the end of September, the city of Rouen published a decree governing the circulation and parking of all 2 wheels (single-wheelers, Segways included).