E-scooters Victoria: Trial’s successful launch

The results are in - love them or loathe them - E-scooters are increasingly whizzing around Melbourne. Read how many car trips they took off the road.

E-scooters parked randomly over the footpath on City road Southbank. Picture: David Caird

At least 161,000 E-scooter trips were made during the first four weeks of a 12-month trial in Melbourne’s inner city.

New figures from operator Neuron Mobility – who are supplying half of the scooters for the state government’s trial – show the massive uptake by riders over February.

Swanston St, Southbank, Docklands, and St Kilda Promenade were the most popular locations to zoom around.

There were more than 40,000 weekly rides, with the average length of trips coming in at 2.5km.

A total of 400,000km was covered over February in Melbourne.

Neuron estimates that the scooters replaced an estimated 72,450 car trips in that month alone.

And anticipate 2million fewer car journeys over the year-long trial.

The peak times for people to jump on and ride were 8am, 5pm, and 8pm.

Flinders St station and Southern Cross station were the two most popular public transport stops to begin their journey on an E-scooter.

Richard Hannah, Head of Australia at Neuron Mobility, said Melbourne had proved the most successful launch of any market in the world.

“What we’ve seen across Australia is that E-scooters are able to provide a socially distant form of travel for people to get to and from work or the shops,” he said.

“As people flock back to the CBD and with activity increasing, we expect the scooters to be able to help those people move around the city, effectively connect to the public transport system.”

The City of Melbourne, City of Yarra, City of Port Phillip and the City of Ballarat, are holding a trial to test how road rules could be changed to include the scooters.

A 20km/h speed limit applies, e-scooters are not allowed on footpaths, but they can use bike lanes, shared paths and roads with a speed limit of 50km/h or less.

Neuron provides third party insurance – but riders must be following the rules to be able to make a claim.

Pedestrians injured by E-scooter riders doing the wrong thing won’t be covered.

It comes amid a crackdown by police on riders flouting the rules, with people travelling on a footpath the third most common offence detected.

Mr Hannah said Neuron’s comprehensive insurance was an “Australian first”.

“All of our riders are covered by third party insurance which does help the rider meet their obligations if they do injure a third party pedestrian for example,” he said.