Region: Bristol

Bristol City Council has created 44 dedicated parking bays for shared e‑scooters and e‑bikes over the past nine months, helping to keep streets clearer and improve safety for everyone.

Part of a regional effort funded by the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority, Bristol’s new parking bays have been added to some of the busiest areas of the city, including the University of Bristol campus, the city centre, Gloucester Road, Clifton, Redland and Bedminster.

Eleven bays have been painted on pavements or in public spaces where there is enough room for them not to obstruct pedestrians. A further 33 bays have been painted on the road, using former Car Club spaces, appropriate sections of double yellow lines, or by converting some general parking spaces.

In total, the bays provide dedicated parking capacity for around 1,160 e‑scooters and e‑bikes, including larger 60‑space hubs in the city centre and smaller 12‑space bays created from converted parking spaces.

Dott, the operator of the city’s e‑scooter and e‑bike hire service, has also begun issuing £10 and £15 penalties for parking outside of a designated parking zone, as part of the region-wide Scoot Safe campaign launched by the regional Mayor and the Police and Crime Commissioner. Monitoring shows that these fines, combined with the new, marked bays, have already led to more responsible parking across the city and region.

Councillor Ed Plowden, Chair of the Transport and Connectivity Committee, said: “E‑scooters and e‑bikes offer people a quick, affordable and low‑carbon way to get to work, visit the shops or travel around their neighbourhoods. But since they were introduced, poor parking has caused frustration and created obstacles on our streets.

“These new parking bays, alongside stricter action on user behaviour, are already making a difference. We’re seeing tidier streets and easier movement for everyone.

“We want to expand this work and install more bays across the city, especially where people have told us there are issues, and we’ll be seeking more funding to help us do that.

“We will continue to rollout new dedicated parking bays and embed them in our future transport projects, to support safer and more accessible streets.

“My thanks go to the team for completing this project, to the Combined Authority for funding it, and to Dott for providing the data that helped us decide where to prioritise the new bays.”

Helen Godwin, Mayor of the West of England, said: “Thanks to Scoot Safe, which we launched last summer, we have seen a significant reduction in the number of people not parking e-scooters correctly.

“More parking spots for e-bikes and e-scooters have been introduced across the region. Now, more than 99 per cent of riders are parking them in a proper parking spot, verified through GPS and in-app photo verification.

“It is clear from the number of rides every week that some people really value having the e-scooters and e-bikes as part of our transport mix. Having dedicated spaces in some of the busiest areas in Bristol and around our region will make it easier for riders to do the right thing, and ride responsibly.”

The West of England Mayoral Combined Authority is responsible for the region’s e-scooter and e-bike trial.

Find out more about WESTscoot and WESTbike hire.

Original press release by Bristol City Council