During a trial period, the City of Helsinki is hoping to find out if injuries can be reduced.
The City of Helsinki is banning nighttime rides with electric scooters on weekends. The decision will come into effect during September and will be in effect at least until the end of the year, the city noted in a statement late on Thursday evening.
In addition, the city is enforcing new speed limits that will come into effect on Friday, September 3.
Nighttime speed limits are going to be limited to 15 km/h every night of the week (between midnight and 05:00 in the morning) and in all areas of Helsinki.
Currently, the nighttime speed limit is only applied in the city center.
Daytime speed limits will also be reduced from 25 km/h to 20 km/h. In many European cities, the maximum speed is already set at 20 km/h.
The new limitations are part of a trial period where injuries related to time and speed are monitored. Should the lower speed limits and nighttime bans turn out to be effective, it could change the way e-scooters are integrated into the city’s infrastructure in the future.
During the trial period, the city is also researching if restrictions on parking should be applied in downtown areas where the e-scooters could disturb the environment and pedestrian traffic.
According to the scooter operators, nighttime drunk riding could be reduced through changes to the locations at which scooters are made available. To this end, the companies are planning to actively move scooters away from busy bar districts to reduce the likelihood of drunk riding.
The new limitations, according to the city, were accepted in mutual understanding with e-scooter operators in Helsinki: Voi, TIER and Lime.
