You cannot park the scooter anywhere outside of the dedicated scooter parking lots, and it is enforced by your phone's GPS. Lime (at least) is pretty strict abo

You cannot park the scooter anywhere outside of the dedicated scooter parking lots, and it is enforced by your phone's GPS. Lime (at least) is pretty strict about it. I once had to make a trip around the block to get my location "unstuck" because it located me 5m off the parking. And they even check the parkings are not overcrowded: if there are too many scooters in one, they'll prevent you from stopping the rental and tell to go find some other parking spot. Really, it's been at least a year, maybe two, I haven't seen a lime or something else parked willy-nilly on the sidewalk or the pavement. So yeah, in Paris, the end result is not much different from vélib, except you don't have the problem of "the thee stations around are empty and the fourth has only broken bikes".