They adopted the new rules for electric scooters in Burgas: Black Sea Lighthouse

George RUSINOV

Burgas Municipal Council adopted the new rules for electric scooters on the territory of Burgas Municipality. They were drawn up by members of the Transport Commission of the local parliament and entered into the Public Order and Security Ordinance. This is a new attempt to regulate modern vehicles that come into conflict with pedestrians on the central streets of Burgas.

In the hall, all political forces expressed their support for the report and defined it as necessary.

It is proposed that the maximum permissible speed for the movement of scooters is 20 km/h on roads and streets where the maximum permitted speed is up to 50 km/h, as well as on streets with built-in bicycle infrastructure and 13 km/h on built-up bicycle lanes infrastructure on the territory of Primorski Park in Burgas.

A new Article 19 is also created. Paragraph 1 states that the owners or operators who provide for rent an individual electric vehicle (EEV) on the territory of the municipality of Burgas, software limit their movement speed in accordance with the maximum permissible movement speeds specified above.

Paragraph 2 includes the ban on their parking in parks, gardens, squares, children’s and sports grounds, green areas, areas intended only for pedestrians, sidewalks, public transport stops, walkways and in front of ramps for access by disabled people on the territory of the municipality of Burgas. Places designated for this purpose by the Municipality of Burgas in parks, gardens and pedestrian spaces will be indicated.

Owners and operators of e-scooter rentals are required to indicate to users in their mobile applications the permitted parking spaces, as well as to use software technology to prevent individual electric vehicles from parking outside the designated parking spaces, based on the capabilities of available GPS technologies.

The parking zones under this paragraph are approved by the head of the “Safety and traffic organization” department at the Municipality of Burgas, after their agreement with the director of OP “Transport” at the Municipality of Burgas and the operators who provide an individual electric vehicle for rent on the territory of Burgas municipality.

The same will have to remove the incorrectly parked IEPS no later than 4 hours on working days and 6 hours on weekends, after finding the violation and notifying the owner or the operator of the service, respectively, in the period from 08:00 to 18:00 . For incorrectly parked individual electric vehicles between 18:01 and 08:00, removal takes place between 08:00 and 12:00.

Questions arose as to whether the operator providing electric scooters for hire could be penalized for this, but lawyers at the City Council agreed that there was no legal obstacle.

Another interesting proposal is to require mandatory age verification from customers, with operators introducing an additional requirement for users to scan or photograph their ID.

The following changes concern a change in the text of the repealed Article 34a, paragraph 1, paragraph 2, paragraph 3 and paragraph 4, related to sanctions and control. In general, individuals will suffer fines of BGN 50, while for legal entities, they are a bit harsher and start at BGN 500 and go up to BGN 1,000. In the case of repeated violations, the penalties rise to BGN 2,000.