The ASTRA-supported research report No. 1653 documents 33 practical riding tests with electric unicycles. The researchers did not conclude that these vehicles were technically fundamentally unsuitable or inherently dangerous. Rather, from a technical perspective, they described their use on existing transport infrastructure as fundamentally conceivable and many of these devices as bicycle-like. At the same time, they considered a classification based solely on current design features such as a steering or holding bar (Lenk- oder Haltestange) to be of little use. This does not change the applicable legal situation, but it relativizes the assumption that a lack of formal approval automatically implies concrete lack of operational safety or special danger.
What went wrong was mainly regulatory path dependence, not a finding that scooters are safer than EUCs.
Electric scooters did not first have to win a scientific comparison against EUCs. Because they have a frame, steering bar, forks and wheels, suitable models could already be classified as Leichtmotorfahrräder (light mopeds). The 2019 study describes precisely this route. The Federal Council later remarked that when rental scooters appeared in large numbers, Switzerland was already in the “comfortable situation” of having rules for them: classification as light mopeds and essentially bicycle traffic rules.
EUCs, by contrast, did not fit neatly into that construction-based category. They could theoretically have fallen under self-balancing vehicles, but lacked type approval and/or compliance with the applicable technical requirements.
So the initial imbalance was:
ASTRA research report 1653 did not conclude that EUCs were inherently unsuitable. Its practical trials found that electric personal vehicles could travel at walking speed, that use on existing infrastructure appeared technically conceivable, and that turning and obstacle negotiation were generally unproblematic. It also stressed that rider skill strongly influenced braking and handling.
More importantly, the researchers placed E-Solowheels and E-trottinettes together as potentially bicycle-like transport devices in categories K2 and K3. For the slower K2 category, they proposed no type approval or individual registration test.
The study explicitly warned against basing regulation on contemporary design features such as a Lenk- oder Haltestange, because such features could quickly become technologically obsolete. It preferred measurable functional requirements, such as the ability to brake and negotiate obstacles.
The 2021 Federal Council report imposed two decisive construction requirements on standing electric vehicles:
It expressly states that the holding bar was chosen partly because it is an “easily controllable rule”. Vehicles without it—including electric unicycles—would remain excluded.
The justification was based on the German regulatory model and German BASt tests, in which self-balancing vehicles without holding bars had reportedly shown comparatively low deceleration values. The report did not explain why the earlier Swiss research—where EUCs had been tested and where the researchers rejected design-feature classification—was not followed.
That was the decisive regulatory fork:
| Research approach | Political approach |
|---|---|
| Measure braking, stability and functionality | Require a visible construction feature |
| Treat EUCs and scooters as potentially bicycle-like | Admit scooters, exclude vehicles without bars |
| Technology-neutral rules | Device-form-specific rules |
| Gradual admission with monitoring | Blanket exclusion |
From an enforcement perspective, the choice is understandable: a police officer can immediately see whether a vehicle has a handlebar and conventional brake levers. Measuring actual braking performance, electronic redundancy or self-balancing failure behaviour is considerably more complicated.
But this produces a poor proxy for safety. A handlebar does not itself guarantee:
Conversely, the absence of a handlebar does not prove that an experienced EUC rider cannot brake effectively or control the vehicle safely. The Swiss trials themselves emphasised the importance of the interaction between rider and vehicle.
This part is an inference rather than something expressly admitted in the reports: scooters appeared rapidly in large numbers, supported by manufacturers, retailers and international rental companies. Authorities therefore needed workable rules immediately. Because scooters already resembled a recognised vehicle category, accommodating them required relatively little legislative change.
EUCs remained a much smaller market, had no major Swiss rental industry and required a genuinely new approach to braking, redundancy and type conformity. The administratively easiest option was therefore to leave them prohibited. The official reports confirm both the pre-existing scooter classification and the decision to exclude vehicles without holding bars.
The outcome was not a reasoned determination that E-trottinettes are generally safer than EUCs. It was largely the result of:
The core problem can be stated succinctly:
The authorities ultimately asked whether the vehicle had a holding bar and a conventionally redundant braking system, rather than whether it could demonstrably satisfy objective requirements for braking performance, stability and operational safety.
France did not conclude that EUCs fitted an existing vehicle category. In 2019, the French Interior Ministry openly acknowledged that electric scooters, monowheels, gyropodes and hoverboards belonged to no existing road-traffic category and were therefore, in principle, not authorised in public space. Instead of leaving them excluded, the government decided to create a new category specifically for them: engins de déplacement personnel motorisés—EDPMs.
The French government treated:
as variants of the same new mobility phenomenon. After several months of consultation, the Interior and Transport ministries prepared a decree, notified it to the European Commission and submitted it to the French standards-evaluation council and Conseil d’État. The expressly stated objective was to allow these vehicles to develop while controlling their risks.
That difference predetermined much of the result.
The new French EDPM definition covered a vehicle:
It did not prescribe two wheels, a steering column, a handlebar or conventional hand controls. Consequently, a compliant EUC could fall within exactly the same legal category as an electric scooter.
That is the central technical difference:
| France | Switzerland |
|---|---|
| Broad category based principally on use and speed | Classification within existing motor-assisted bicycle rules |
| No compulsory handlebar in the category definition | Handlebar or holding bar compulsory for standing vehicles |
| EUCs and scooters can share one category | The construction rule separates scooters from EUCs |
| Risks controlled through equipment and usage rules | Admission blocked at the vehicle-construction stage |
France required an effective braking device, lights, reflectors and an audible warning device. It then regulated where and how EDPMs could be ridden—primarily cycle infrastructure and, under defined conditions, ordinary urban roads.
It also exempted EDPMs from the ordinary national vehicle type-approval procedure and from registration. Thus, an individual French EUC did not have to obtain the equivalent of a conventional motor-vehicle type approval before being used as an EDPM.
The underlying model was therefore approximately: Permit the category, prescribe functional equipment, limit speed and regulate behaviour.
Switzerland instead retained a stronger admission barrier involving technical conformity and, for self-balancing standing vehicles, a visible structural feature.
The 2021 Federal Council report says that standing electric vehicles should have a steering or holding bar so the rider can support themselves in an emergency. Significantly, it describes the holding-bar requirement as an “easily controllable rule”. It then expressly states that electric unicycles, skateboards and self-balancing vehicles without such a bar should remain excluded from public space.
That reveals a different regulatory priority:
The Swiss approach was influenced by the German system, even though Germany’s category itself excluded devices without handlebars. The Federal Council report expressly refers to the German rule and its underlying trials.
The French reform was politically driven by the rapidly growing presence of new devices in streets and public spaces. Electric scooters created the greatest visible pressure for immediate rules. But because France drafted a technology-broad category, monowheels were included from the beginning rather than treated as an awkward exception.
This is an inference from the regulatory history, but a strong one:
In Switzerland, scooters already fitted the architecture of a motor-assisted bicycle with a steering bar. Consequently, legalising or retaining scooters did not force the authorities to solve the EUC problem. Once scooters had a route into the existing category, there was much less administrative pressure to create a genuinely technology-neutral category.
France did not legalise every commercially available EUC. The EDPM definition requires a maximum speed by construction of no more than 25 km/h. A high-performance EUC capable of 40, 50 or 60 km/h does not automatically become road-legal merely because the rider selects a 25 km/h limit in an app.
Therefore, the French comparison supports this proposition:
It does not necessarily prove that your particular unrestricted EUC would qualify under French law.
What went differently in France was not primarily better EUC testing. It was the regulatory philosophy:
France created a new category around the actual characteristics of emerging personal mobility devices. Switzerland adapted existing categories but inserted an easily enforceable handlebar requirement that, by definition, excluded EUCs.
France is useful as evidence that complete exclusion is not an unavoidable consequence of road safety. Another neighbouring jurisdiction addressed comparable risks through speed limits, equipment requirements, insurance and traffic rules rather than through a blanket structural prohibition. It is relevant to the rationality and proportionality of the Swiss regulatory outcome, although it does not change the binding Swiss law applicable to your journey.