Lord Mayor Sally Capp says the e-scooter trial extension is ‘delaying’ critical safety upgrades

Lord Mayor Sally Capp says the City of Melbourne is “stuck in a regime” and cannot make critical safety upgrades to e-scooters — or rollout tech to ban riders from footpaths — until the long-running trial is over.

Lord Mayor Sally Capp says the call by the state government to further extend the city’s e-scooter trial has “delayed” critical safety improvements, including the rollout of technology to stop rule breakers from riding on footpaths.

The long-running trial was extended in April for the third time, with the state government confirming it was pushing out the probationary period by six months to investigate additional “safety and compliance” measures.

But, in an exclusive interview with the Herald Sun, Ms Capp said the City of Melbourne is “stuck in a regime” until the trial finishes, with e-scooter operators not yet able to invest in the scheme long term to bolster these measures.

The city’s e-scooter trial was extended in April for the third time. Picture: Brendan Beckett

“We are keen to move into the next phase of commercial relationships with operators in Melbourne … and we aren’t able to do that while the trials are extended,” she said.

“We appreciate that the state government has a focus for this six-month extension on safety and education but in the City of Melbourne context we think they’re really valuable, but we recognise there are issues that need to be managed and we can’t proactively manage those better until the trial is over.”

Under the current trial, no-ride zones include the Royal Botanic Gardens, Treasury Gardens, Federation Square, Southern Cross Station and Bourke Street Mall.

But Ms Capp said more could be done to prevent users from not only riding in certain areas, but from illegally riding on footpaths.

“Improved technology … to geofence pavements, which would mean that the machines stopped working on pavements, requires a significant investment by the operators and … it’s not commercially feasible to do that during a trial period,” she said.

“From that perspective, it has delayed improvements to safety and I think the better operation of the shared scooter schemes.”

Lord Mayor Sally Capp says the City of Melbourne is ‘stuck in a regime’ until the trial finishes. Picture: Tim Carrafa

In August last year, the City of Melbourne said technology in “development” included:

AI systems to prevent riders from ending a trip without parking correctly;

Alcohol detection systems to combat intoxicated riding;

Rider identification verification systems to target underage riding; and

Dual-band GPS technology to improve the accuracy of locating e-scooters, geofencing and designated parking.

Ms Capp told the Herald Sun she believed that additional work on “safety and compliance” could be completed under a permanent scheme.

“Whenever you put a scheme like this in place, there should be continuous improvement regardless, so we could move to confirming that a shared scooter scheme will go ahead … and we can then keep working with the operators, levels of government and government agencies like Victoria Police to keep improving,” she said.

More than 8.5 million trips have been made using Lime and Neuron e-scooters since the trial launched in February 2022, with each operator finding that residents and visitors have travelled more than seven million kilometres.

Ms Capp said it was only a small minority of people “doing the wrong thing”, with Neuron data confirming more than 99 per cent of trips end safely and without incident.

“Nonetheless, those people cause impacts that are really unacceptable,” she added.

“Lime and Neuron as our current operators in Melbourne have been excellent, but there’s also only so much they can do or justify during a trial period.”

E-scooter crashes sent more than 180 people to St Vincent’s Hospital alone in the six months to April, while 272 patients were admitted to The Alfred with e-scooter injuries in the five years to May 2022.

A Lime spokeswoman said it “wholeheartedly” supported e-scooters becoming a permanent fixture on Melbourne streets.

“We will continue to work hand-in-hand with the state government and local councils as Melburnians continue to embrace e-bikes, e-scooters and future micromobility devices,” the spokeswoman said.

“Currently, we see far excess demand for the program and look forward to implementing dedicated infrastructure in collaboration with councils to support the scheme.”

Lime’s footpath riding detection technology, which uses real-time detection and audio alerts to crackdown on illegal footpath and tandem riding, has only been rolled out to 100 e-scooters in Melbourne.

Lime’s footpath riding detection technology has only been rolled out to 100 e-scooters. Picture: Brendan Beckett

A Neuron spokeswoman said it has continued to invest in technology since the launch in February 2022, with the operator also trialling front-facing cameras on a fleet of e-scooters to detect footpath riding.

“We will continue to work with (the City of Melbourne and the Department of Transport and Planning) to refine the service and further integrate it into the city in the best possible way,” she said.

A state government spokesman said: “We’ve announced e-scooters are here to stay, giving e-scooter operators and the public certainty, but we have more work to do on safety and compliance to ensure they’re safe when they’re made permanent later this year.”

A Department of Transport and Planning spokesman also said e-scooters were “here to stay.”

“We are exploring all options to ensure the safety of road users before the trial ends and they are made permanent later this year,” he said.