Darwin’s scooter hotspot revealed

The most popular destination for Darwin’s new eScooters has been revealed by the company that owns them, Neuron Mobility.

Rick Bolten at Chow Restaurant on the Darwin Waterfront. Chow has been the most popular location so far to pick up a scooter for a trip. Picture: Che Chorley

A WATERFRONT restaurant has proved the most popular destination for Darwin’s new eScooters, with the waterfront precinct the most popular route for users.

While Neuron Mobility communications officer Joe Oliver said they were keeping the specific numbers secret, the parking station outside Darwin Waterfront’s Chow restaurant had proved to be the most popular, while Darwin Waterfront, the Esplanade and the Skybridge have been popular routes.

The scooters had been used on 10,000 trips to this week, with a peak of 117 trips per hour on weekends, while use had increased between 4pm and 9pm daily.

Almost 500 people had signed up per day, with 5582 in total signing up.

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Darwin Council chief executive Scott Waters said plenty of people were enjoying the scooter trial.

“At anytime of the day we’ve got about an 80 per cent take up rate on the scooters so they are being utilized by the community,” he said.

“It’s not bad, you see people zipping around town going to meetings … some will use it once and say ‘It’s not for me’ and for some it might become part-and-parcel in their everyday life.

“It’s just another opportunity in the city to get around and gives us some colour and vibrancy and makes the city look really great.”

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While other popular locations included Darwin Central Plaza, DoubleTree Hilton and Mitchell St Coles, Mr Waters said discussions were already taking place about where the network could expand to.

“The Cullen Bay to the CBD grid is the current area covered … I’m working with the NTG and Waterfront Corporation to look at where we might be able to expand those in the future,” he said.

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Rider Rick Bolten has used the scooters four times so far and said the Waterfront was the perfect place to ride them.

“I can understand why the Waterfront is popular, people stay in the city but there are lots of different places and restaurants down there,” he said.

“They can scoot down there easily and it’s cheap and it’s all good fun.”

Mr Oliver said they were encouraged by the level of interest.

So far one user error left a 27-year-old-woman in hospital with facial injuries but Darwin council and Neuron report riders have generally been well behaved.