The Land Transport Authority recently announced that e-scooters are permanently banned from footpaths in Singapore.

As you might imagine, the ones hardest hit by this ban are PMD delivery riders.

Member of Parliament Liang Eng Hwa posed a supplementary question to Senior Minister of State for Transport, Lam Pin Min in Parliament on Oct. 4, asking if there is any help offered to delivery riders:

"I'm a little concerned about how this will impact the food delivery businesses.... I want to ask SMS (Lam) how he sees this decison affecting the food delivery businesses and more importantly, the PMD riders. They depend on the PMDs to earn a living, [will there be] existing measures to help them to continue to have a way to do their business."

About 7,000 food delivery riders use PMDs in Singapore

In response, Lam said that the government has been engaging food delivery companies FoodPanda, Deliveroo, and GrabFood.

"There are approximately about 7,000 food delivery riders using PMDs engaged by these three companies," he said.

Lam also said that less than 30 per cent of deliveries are done using PMDs.

"For FoodPanda, only 12 per cent of their food deliveries are done using PMDs. Deliveroo, about 5 per cent," said Lam.

Grab also revealed after the announcement of the ban that over one in three GrabFood delivery-partners rely on e-scooters to fulfil orders and earn an income.

Lam said that the government is working with the food delivery companies to help their PMD riders switch from e-scooters to either motorcycles or bicycles.

For workers who are unable to make the switch, Lam said that the government will work with the companies and Workforce Singapore to look for alternative jobs for them.

You can watch the exchange here:

Top images via Deliveroo, FoodPanda.

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