Lime Scooters in Brisbane to double under ambitious plan to expand outside of CBD

E-scooter riders in Brisbane will have double the number of scooters to choose from and will be able to ride them far further out into the city's suburbs under a new plan Lime is taking to City Council. FIND OUT WHERE THE SCOOTERS COULD GO

E-SCOOTER numbers in Brisbane would be doubled under an ambitious plan from Lime to roll out its services well beyond the CBD.

The Courier-Mail can reveal Lime is pushing Brisbane City Council to significantly increase the number of e-scooters permitted to operate in the city from 1000 to about 2000.

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They say the 1000 scooters Neuron and Lime operate between them is not enough to keep up with demand, forcing them to limit much of their services to the CBD.

Lime’s public affairs manager Nelson Savanh said there were lots of opportunities to roll out more scooters across the River City, even in suburbs such as Cannon Hill and Bulimba.

“Riders are telling us that they’re wanting more scooters in really fast-growing areas of the city, especially around Newstead and New Farm,” he said. “We’ve also had lots of people through our customer service channels say that they want to see scooters in places like Bulimba. People outside the core of the CBD are wanting to use the scooters in different ways and we’d like to be able to service it.”

Mr Savanh said they wanted to deploy their scooters in areas where they would not be idle, and there was plenty of activity and density.

Lime says customers want to be able to access scooters further out into Brisbane’s suburbs.

“But when you’ve got new projects like the Brisbane Metro coming up, it will be really interesting to see how scooters can help bring commuters to and from those stations to support that infrastructure in the middle-ring suburbs of Brisbane as well.”

Mr Savanh said doubling the citywide fleet to 2000 would help Lime understand how residents in CBD fringe suburbs such as Toowong would use the scooters.

Public and Active Transport chairwoman Krista Adams said the caps would be reviewed when the current 12-month contracts issued to Lime and Neuron were up for renewal.

“Council issued the operators a citywide permit and the individual operators can decide what suburbs they would like to deploy their e-scooters in,” she said.