Voi loses appeal and must remove scooters from Brussels

Shared micro-mobility provider Voi will lose its licence for operating rental scooters in the Belgian capital following a ruling from the Brussels Court of First Instance.

“This is another step towards efficient shared mobility with respect for all users of public space,” said outgoing Brussels mobility minister Elke Van den Brandt (Groen) of the verdict.

“The message to operators is clear: they are welcome if they respect the framework that has been established.”

The Brussels region has been fighting a legal battle to reduce the number of scooter operators in the city, Bruzz reports, in response to rising complaints about the public nuisance that rental scooters can cause.

Brussels Mobility selected Bolt and Dott as the only operators still allowed to operate shared scooters. Voi and Lime were allowed to continue operations until their licences expired in January 2024.

Voi - along with Lime, which is part of Uber - appealed against their exclusion from the list of approved operators following new regulations approved in the summer of 2023.

The two companies wanted the courts to recognise the automatically renewable nature of their licence, which the courts ultimately rejected.

The disappearance of Voi will reduce the number of shared scooters in Brussels by about 3,000, the Van den Brandt administration said.

There are currently 12,400 shared scooters in the capital and the Brussels government's goal is to eventually reduce this to a maximum of 8,000.

“We will respect the verdict and remove our scooters,” said Voi country manager Yessin Aattache.

“This is not a problem for us as a company because we are also active in other cities, but for our employees, the impact is big.”

Voi has about 30 employees in Belgium on open-ended contracts.

The Swedish company said it was considering increasing the number of shared bikes in Brussels in response to this recent rejection of their appeal.

Voi was given an allowance of 2,500 bicycles at the time of the reforms, but currently only about 250 are said to be active.