“If a car burns, they don’t ban cars”

Madrid and Barcelona prohibit the entry of scooters into public transport after two battery fires

The data available on scooter users reflects a working profile, from the periphery and with a high proportion of foreigners.

On October 31, the same day that Princess Leonor swore in the Constitution, a car burned on the M30 in Madrid. It caused no injuries, only traffic jams and an anxiety crisis for the person driving it. Reviewing the newspaper archive, we see that it is not the first time: on August 8 of this year another burned, in October 2021 another, in March 2019 one more and in 2017 there was a large fire with nine vehicles involved. Except the second, all went within tunnels.

The media reported the event and life went on. “I haven’t seen news saying that cars should be banned. They were talking about an accident, that everyone was fine and What to do if your car catches firesays Armando Hernández, spokesperson and member of the board of directors of the Association of Personal Mobility Vehicle Users (VMP). “When there is an incident with a scooter they mention all the accidents they have caused. It seems that VMP are enemy number one of the society. “If a car burns, no one asks for it to be banned.”

The image of the burned car in the #M30 At the height of Sales it is shocking. But thanks to the quick action of the entire team #MadridCalle30 @FirefightersMad @policiademadrid @cgm_madrideverything has been a scare. pic.twitter.com/JmkzRHzjig

— Madrid Calle 30 (@Calle30Madrid) October 31, 2023

Hernández speaks with anger. He does it before the ban starting this Saturday, November 4, scooters in the Madrid metro, a decision made by the Regional Transport Consortium after a battery fire in a car on line 2. Service on the line was interrupted for several hours and there were no injuries. Although it was the first time that this happened in Madrid, the organization was blunt: it will not be possible to travel with electric scooters neither in the metro, nor in intercity buses nor in transport interchanges.

The measure, says the public company, is provisional “until the safety conditions of this type of elements are completely verified.” The Department of Transport of the Madrid’s community He has not responded to a request for information from this newspaper or provided more information about the causes of the fire in the subway. The experts consulted agree that cases like this are exceptional and are considered manipulations of the battery or because it does not meet the insulation standards, getting wet or damaged.

“The battery may have been modified to increase its power or it may have been forced, overheated, and failed,” says Hernández. Iván Villarrubia, from the Enbicipormadrid collective, points to the second cause. “If you look closely, some delivery drivers have the batteries wrapped in plastic. This is so that water doesn’t get into them. “Many scooters have unapproved batteries,” says. “But there have been as many problems with scooter batteries as with portable batteries: one. In 2018 a computer exploded and they were not banned.”

The Barcelona Metropolitan Transport Authority reached the same conclusions after a similar event, a year ago, on the Railways: the batteries catch fire due to software manipulation, overloading or “thermal runaway” processes in which their temperature increases. . After a temporary ban, it recently announced that it will ban scooters indefinitely on the entire public transport network. The organization recognizes that the probability of a scooter battery catching fire is low, but the “severity” of such an incident is high. A hundred users demonstrated at Sants station after hearing the news.

Those who lose

There is no official data on how many electric scooter users there are in the Community of Madrid. The latest regional mobility survey, from 2018, does not even consider its existence. From the user association they assure that there are at least “five million VMPs throughout the country” and that “thousands of people” will be affected by the hasty decision. “There are many people who work with their scooters. The riders, For example. Are precarious people, who live on the outskirts, get on the interurban or the subway and go downtown to work,” says Hernández. “Or people who work in industrial estates several kilometers from a subway station or bus stop, or who have several jobs and go from one to another on a scooter. “It’s class discrimination.”.

that the riders They will be one of the main victims, they know it in Glovo, which, as this newspaper has learned, has sent a message to their people encouraging them to hire bicycles or motorcycles for between 115 and 169 euros per month. The Madrid ban, the company says in its statement, “is the perfect excuse to renew your electric vehicle“.

Villarrubia, who worked on the Getafe Cycling Plan, has some data on the use of scooters in this city in the south of the Community. “There is no gender gap and it is used in the university, industrial and downtown areas, where the houses are old, without an elevator and you cannot take a bicycle. In new areas it is used less because everyone moves by car. There is an income filter: the ban does not penalize the man who uses the scooter on a whim, but rather the one who uses it to get around. “The mobility it gives you for 300 euros is brutal.”

In Barcelona we do know how many people use scooters and why. The 2021 Metropolitan Mobility Yearbook drew a profile for the first time, and it is not so different from what the VMP association paints. The type user is young (36 years on average), man or woman (there is much less gender gap than on the bicycle), foreign (40% of users) and scrolls through the metropolitan crown for reasons of job. The report does not offer rental data, but it states that the scooter is a much more transversal means of transport than the car, whose ownership falls among the lowest incomes.

“It is a very affordable means of transportation,” he says, and a “good ally next to public transport for sustainable travel”. Scooters account for 0.8% of journeys, but they are the fastest growing means of transport.

I hate the new

“There is a basic problem: the marginalization of the newcomer”, says Villarrubia. “The popularization of the bicycle made motorcycles good and now the scooter makes bikes good. Just as VTCs have made taxi drivers good. With rental scooters the alarm has arisen that they occupy the sidewalks, but what about the motorcycles? We massacre the newly arrived means of transport and we don’t care about destroying their lives.”

The VMP Users Association met with the CEO of Metro to propose solutions and try to avoid the ban. “It’s not that we don’t care that a scooter has exploded, but we don’t want it to affect the thousands of people who use them,” says his spokesperson. The main problem, he points out, is scooters that circulate in Spain without the CE certificate of the European Union. That is why they ask that Customs control the entry of these vehicles. Another option, they add in EnbiciporMadrid, is to train Metro employees to do random controls and check that only approved scooters enter.

In 2027 a new rule will come into force that will only allow certified scooters to circulate, which meet a series of requirements defined by the DGT. This, on the one hand, could solve the problem of non-approved scooters that catch fire on public transport. For the association, however, It will be a new workhorse because it will limit aspects such as the power of the vehicle. “With a power of 1,000 watts and a 60 kilo person, a scooter cannot go up a hill,” he exemplifies. “It is well regarded by society and politicians because it regulates a new vehicle, but In practice it will be one more way to demonize the VMP”.