The electric scooter season has begun in Espoo
This year, the electric scooter season in Espoo began on 18 March. The new micromobility legislation, which entered into force in 2025, introduced a micromobility licence that is valid for the first time during this season. The licence regulates the renting of electric scooters. The licence includes restrictions on service use times, driving speeds and parking. The restrictions are meant to improve the safety, accessibility and appeal of urban spaces.
Electric scooter drivers must follow the same traffic rules as cyclists
Key changes in the legislation:
- The driver must be at least 15 years old.
- Relinquishing an electric scooter to a person under the age of 15 is punishable by law.
- Driving an electric scooter while intoxicated is illegal; the limit for blood alcohol content is 0.5 per mille.
- The use of a helmet is recommended.
Electric scooter drivers must follow the same traffic rules as cyclists. It is illegal to drive on the pavement or have additional passengers.
Electric scooters should primarily be parked in the designated parking areas. There are almost 200 such parking areas in Espoo. The parking areas are visible to users in the electric scooter companies’ applications. Some parking spaces also have an electric scooter road marking. If there are no parking areas nearby, the scooter must be parked carefully at the very edge of the driveway and parallel to it to prevent obstruction or inconvenience to traffic.
Micromobility licence and restrictions in Espoo
Restrictions under the micromobility licence include low-speed zones, no-driving zones, no-parking zones, and designated parking zones where parking is permitted only in spaces designated for scooters. The siting of parking spaces designated by the city is currently underway. Much like other restrictions, these measures are focused particularly on busy urban centres, public transport hubs and sports parks.
Typical examples of no-driving zones and no-parking zones include school yards, sports fields, bridges and underpass tunnels. The use of electric scooters is monitored and controlled with an application system based on GPS technology.
The general restrictions on the speed and use time of electric scooter will remain unchanged. The speed limit for electric scooters is 20 km/h in daytime and 15 km/h on weekday nights. The scooters will not be available on weekend nights or on the night between May Day Eve and May Day from 00 to 05 a.m.
There are three electric scooter companies operating in Espoo: Voi, Ryde and Dott. There are currently 3,700 electric scooters in total in the city. By the end of April, they have been used for nearly 200,000 journeys, most of which took place in and around busy urban centres. In the last season, more than two million journeys were made, which shows how popular this mode of transport is.
In April, the City of Espoo hired two higher education trainees to work on electric scooters. Their tasks primarily include monitoring the effectiveness of the restrictions imposed by micromobility licences and developing them in cooperation with different parties.
Regional restrictions and designated parking spots for electric scooters in Espoo can be found in Espoo’s map service(external link, opens in a new window). For more information on the restrictions and the micromobility licence, please visit https://www.espoo.fi/en/transport-and-streets/sustainable-forms-transport.