A month into e-scooter trial, Ballarat takes 40,000 trips and travels 100,000kms

New data has revealed how many scooter trips people have taken in Ballarat, the thousands of kilometres travelled and the most popular destinations.

A Neuron e-scooter on Sturt Street, Ballarat.

Ballarat residents have taken 40,000 trips and travelled more than 100,000kms in the first month of the town’s e-scooter trial.

Since December 15 last year, the average journey on Neuron’s e-scooters has been 2.8km, Town Hall being the most popular place for people to start and end their rides.

Neuron Mobility Ballarat operations manager Tessa Fraumano said the Ballarat High School Boat Shed and the Lake View Hotel were also frequented locations for people to scoot around Lake Wendouree.

“Of course there have been a few people who are still undecided about e-scooters – that happens particularly in the early days of a new program – but overwhelmingly we’ve had fantastic feedback and support from those who have taken a trip,” Ms Fraumano said.

“People have been using the service to travel around Ballarat Central, Ballarat North and Lake

Wendouree areas, and many are making trips they wouldn’t otherwise have made.

“We experienced a huge uptake in the first week, coming into Christmas with so many people in the city.

“January has been a little quieter with so many people on holidays and a few very rainy days, but it is great to see there is still a really healthy demand.”

Lake Wendouree has proved a popular scooting area.

One week into the trial, Neuron launched a safety campaign to deal with reports of dangerous behaviour, and scooters left in undesirable places.

Ms Fraumano said “the vast majority” of riders were well-behaved and she expected the instances of irresponsible riding to reduce over time as people become more familiar with the vehicles.

If it were needed, she said, some users could be restricted from riding again.

“All of our e-scooters are GPS-connected and all trips are logged so it’s fairly easy to identify the small number of riders who are breaking the rules,” Ms Fraumano said.

“Our e-scooters are all fitted with registration plates on the back and front, which makes it easy for people to report any issues.

“Thankfully cases of repeat offending are rare. We generally warn people and try to re-educate them but we can also suspend and ban their accounts if they have been riding dangerously or if they continually break the rules.”

Further integration of the distinctive orange scooters into Ballarat will be achieved by working with the council and other authorities, Ms Fraumano said.

“We want the right number of e-scooters to be in the right locations at the right time so that they are most useful to people.

“Plus we’re also constantly evaluating our slow zones, no-go zones and preferred parking locations, and undoubtedly we’ll continue to adapt these over time as well.”

The government-backed e-scooter trial in Ballarat covers a 25 sqm riding area including Ballarat Central, Ballarat North, Lake Wendouree, Eureka Golden Point and Redan.

There are 250 scooters about town, and the trial will run until mid-December 2022.