Electric scooters have definitively ceased to be entertainment — and now they have attracted interest in the upper house of parliament. The Federation Council is once again discussing how to bring order to the streets, where scooters and other personal mobility devices (PMDs) have long played the role of full-fledged transportation.
According to operators, in 2025, Russians took 243 million rides on rental scooters, with more than 90% of these being not for entertainment, but for real travel for business. In fact, as participants in the discussion acknowledged, scooters are already competing with public transport — in some cities, there are more trips on them than on the subway.
In Moscow, the numbers are also impressive: 71 million trips per year, about 32 thousand daily on business routes. At the same time, the accident rate has been reduced by more than half — due to user identification and cameras.
But there is a problem: the rules are not keeping up with reality. Currently, fines for scooter users are symbolic — up to one and a half thousand rubles, and there is still no full regulation. Authorities admit: the system is failing, and the streets live by their own laws.
The Federation Council proposes:
- separate pedestrian and scooter flows
- create separate infrastructure
- toughen liability
- introduce mandatory registration of such transport
The Ministry of Transport promises to present updated rules by June 2026, but the project has long been "stuck" in approvals.
In the meantime, regions are acting at their own discretion. Business calls this a "hodgepodge" and asks for uniform rules.
A separate issue is parking. There are almost none anywhere, and regions are in no hurry to create infrastructure. As a result, scooters have already become mass transport, but continue to live without a normal unified regulatory system.