Move comes amid safety concerns and coincides with new focus on bike sharing.Florence city council has voted to end its electric scooter rental service, primarily over safety concerns, with the measure taking effect from 1 April 2026.The decision will see the Italian city end its collaboration with scooter sharing companies, part of a trial arrangement that has been renewed twice since its launch five years ago. The council said the reason related to decorum and road safety, including the difficulty of policing a new law requiring scooter users to wear helmets. The city said the move was to avert "creating a situation of potential systematic violation of the Highway Code, unacceptable for urban and road safety", citing also "critical issues related to improper use by users," such as unauthorised parking and scooters travelling in the wrong direction, on pavements, in restricted areas, or in bus and taxi lanes. Parallel to the phasing out of rental e-scooters, the city will boost its bike-sharing service - which registered more than 1.5 million rentals in 2024 and an 18 per cent growth in the first months of 2025—by increasing the number of bicycles in circulation. "We are working hard on road safety, which has always been a priority for us, and we'll use all the resources we have to ensure it", Florence mayor Sara Funaro told Corriere della Sera newspaper. In 2021, under former mayor Dario Nardella, Florence attempted to make helmets mandatory for e-scooter users however the ordinance was overturned by the regional administrative court. The Tuscan capital recently ushered in a new bylaw prohibiting rickshaws and golf carts from the city's UNESCO-listed historic centre. After Paris and Madrid, Florence is the latest city in Europe to ban rental electric scooters, with Prague also set to follow suit next January. Photo credit: Alessandro Romagnoli - Shutterstock.com.

Florence city council has voted to end its electric scooter rental service, primarily over safety concerns, with the measure taking effect from 1 April 2026. The decision will see the Italian city end its collaboration with scooter sharing companies, part of a trial arrangement that has been renewed twice since its launch five years ago. The council said the reason related to decorum and road safety, including the difficulty of policing a . The city said the move was to avert "creating a situation of potential systematic violation of the Highway Code, unacceptable for urban and road safety", citing also "critical issues related to improper use by users," such as unauthorised parking and scooters travelling in the wrong direction, on pavements, in restricted areas, or in bus and taxi lanes. Parallel to the phasing out of rental e-scooters, the city will boost its bike-sharing service - which registered more than 1.5 million rentals in 2024 and an 18 per cent growth in the first months of 2025—by increasing the number of bicycles in circulation. "We are working hard on road safety, which has always been a priority for us, and we'll use all the resources we have to ensure it", Florence mayor told Corriere della Sera newspaper. In 2021, under former mayor Dario Nardella, Florence attempted to however the ordinance was overturned by the regional administrative court. The Tuscan capital recently ushered in a new bylaw  from the city's UNESCO-listed historic centre. After Paris and Madrid, Florence is the latest city in Europe to ban rental electric scooters, with Prague also set to follow suit next January. Photo credit: Alessandro Romagnoli - Shutterstock.com.