Starting on Friday, users will not be allowed to leave rented electric scooters anywhere in central Vilnius but will have to park them in designated areas.
The parking spaces are located in four districts of the city: Senamiestis (Old Town), part of Naujamiestis, Užupis and Šnipiškės, Vilnius municipality said on Thursday.
In total, just over 100 locations have been designated and marked with special rectangular signs. Each will fit up to ten scooters.
“We are gradually incorporating different regulatory measures in the development of a policy for the movement of micro-mobility vehicles in Vilnius: speed limits, traffic bans, special parking zones. Although it is still difficult to judge the effectiveness of these measures, we can see that they provide more safety and clarity for road users and reduce chaos and visual pollution on the city’s streets,” Adomas Bužinskas, director of the Vilnius Municipal Administration, is quoted in a press release.
All scooter parking spaces, as well as no-traffic streets and speed limit zones, are marked on an interactive map and in the system of scooter sharing platform providers.
This will allow the GPS signal of the scooter to be tracked to show its location. If the electric scooter is near a parking zone, the system will automatically prevent it from being left elsewhere.
The mandatory parking spaces in central Vilnius are part of a package of speed limits and other traffic restrictions for electric scooters already in force since spring.
In the Old Town (Senamiestis) and on all bridges, electric scooters can drive at a maximum speed of 12 km/h. These limits are automatically applied by scooter-sharing companies.
At the same time, signs banning scooters and bicycles are in place in three streets: Vilniaus, Pilies, and Savičiaus.
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