Possible city ban blindsides e-scooter hire companies

E-scooter hire companies hope to pump the brakes on a looming Melbourne ban, ahead of a council meeting to determine their future in the city. City of Melbourne Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece and councillor Davydd Griffiths will propose the council tear up contracts with e-scooter hire operators Lime and Neuron Mobility at Tuesday night's council meeting, unless the hire companies better manage e-scooter use. Mr Reece has said he is fed up with seeing scooters strewn across pathways, users riding without helmets, double-dinking and causing accidents. Tuesday's motion suggests measures including restricting e-scooter parking to designated bays, limiting the number of scooters in the municipality and forcing providers to spend more on enforcement. Neuron and Lime's contracts with the city expire in April 2025, but the council has the power to end them with 30 days notice. The motion came as a shock to Neuron general manager Jayden Bryant, who said his company had been working with the city on how to best regulate the e-scooter program. "It is very odd that a tabled proposal for the introduction of new e-scooter technology can change to become a proposal for a ban in just one day," Mr Bryant said in a statement. "We have been having in-depth discussions with the City of Melbourne team for weeks about how to best optimise the city's e-scooter program and have been working on delivering their plans for how to best regulate the e-scooter program for the future." Mr Bryant said e-scooters boosted Melbourne's economy by about $300 million a year and Neuron's 1250 scooters had become a part of the city's transport mix since launching in 2022. A company survey of more than 7000 users found about five per cent of Neuron's riders had a disability or mobility impairment that prevented them from walking long distances. Neuron's scooters have travelled more than 8.5 million kilometres and taken 4.7 million trips since 2022, but public e-scooters have spurred waves of complaints regarding public safety and blocked pathways. In July, the state government announced fines would increase for using e-scooters on footpaths, and new penalties for double-dinking and riding without a helmet. A Lime spokesman told AAP the company invested more than over $40 million in locally-based operations and technology. "Lime is committed to providing a safe and responsible shared e-scooter service in the City of Melbourne," he said. He said in the absence of public e-scooters, riders would turn to unregulated, privately-owned scooters that could be modified to travel at high speeds, giving up the ability to implement geofencing, slow zones and helmets. "While we can appreciate the councillors are hearing from a very vocal minority, we'll remain focused on continuing to improve our service and tackling concerns raised by local residents." Melbourne City will vote on the proposal at Tuesday night's meeting.