Melbourne’s CBD will lose its rental e-scooter scheme after the council voted to end contracts with operators.
The lord mayor, Nicholas Reece, leading the debate at the Future Melbourne Committee meeting at Melbourne Town Hall on Tuesday evening, said the scooters presented an unacceptable safety risk to the city and were “shameful”.
“We need a fundamental reset,” he said, adding that he had originally supported their arrival two-and-a-half years ago, but had “run out of patience”.
The motion to end the council’s contracts with operators Lime and Neuron as part of the two-year trial, passed six to four.
The vote means the council will end existing contracts with the rental operators. It is understood the operators will be given 30 days’ notice, as specified in the contract.
Council received 74 submissions and about 600 items of correspondence regarding the potential ban.
Those against the motion cited a lack of consultation and data and said that the scheme was in need of tightened controls and regulation but did not warrant a ban.
One submitter, Llewellyn Prain, who is vision impaired, recounted an accident with an e-scooter just days ago and urged the council to “walk the talk on inclusion”.
Another, Greg Bisinella of the East Melbourne Group, said the mode of transport was a “bloody menace”.
The general manager for Australia and New Zealand at Neuron Mobility, Jayden Bryant, earlier said the company had been in discussion with the council for weeks about how to “best optimise the city’s e-scooter program”.
“This goes over and above the reforms announced by the state government,” he said.
“It is very odd that [a different] tabled proposal for the introduction of new e-scooter technology can change to become a proposal for a ban.”
Reece told 3AW radio on Tuesday that, if passed, the motion would mean the public e-scooter scheme would no longer operate in the Melbourne city council area.
“The proposal is the contracts not be continued,” he said.
Reece said he was initially a supporter of the public e-scooter scheme when it started, but was “fed up with the bad behaviour” and safety issues.
“Too many people [are] riding on footpaths. People don’t park them properly. They’re tipped, they’re scattered around the city like confetti, like rubbish, creating tripping hazards,” he said.
Reece said questions around liability and insurance for accidents was “a very complex legal environment”.
Victoria’s e-scooter trial began in February 2022, with 1,500 Lime and Neuron vehicles initially placed across three council areas – Melbourne, Port Phillip and Yarra.
The Allan government had announced that, from October, public e-scooter schemes would be permanently legal. The government also announced tougher rules and penalties, including increased fines for riding on the footpath, not wearing a helmet and drinking alcohol while riding.
Melbourne city council has previously said the trial has cut the city’s carbon emissions by more than 400 tonnes and encouraged more people to use public transport.
But critics have pointed to scooters being ridden dangerously on footpaths – a particular hazard for elderly people and people with a disability – and left strewn on footpaths.
A study at the Royal Melbourne hospital, published in December, found it had almost 250 injured e-scooter riders taken to its emergency department with injuries in 2022, with intoxication, speed and not wearing a helmet the biggest risk factors.
Two-thirds of the injured riders were not wearing helmets, while just over one-third said they had been drinking.
Bryant said Neuron had announced significant investment in its technology, including the use of AI-enabled cameras to help detect and prevent riding on footpaths.
“We are poised to introduce a whole range of new technologies on to Melbourne’s streets. If the recommendations provided by council officers were adopted, it would make the city’s e-scooter program the most tightly regulated in the world,” he said.
A Lime spokesperson said it was committed to providing a “safe and responsible shared e-scooter service in the city of Melbourne” and had invested more than $40m in locally based operations and technology.
“This includes localised product enhancements such as helmet locks and footpath riding cameras, labour for over 50 Melbourne-based employees, long-term real estate lease that supports regulated battery storage and ongoing safe operations,” the spokesperson said.
“Scooters in Melbourne are tremendously popular because they offer an affordable, convenient and sustainable transport option that people rely on. Last week, Melbourne had higher vehicle utilisation than Paris, during the Olympics.”
