‘Fed up’: Melbourne set to scrap hire e-scooters

Share-hire e-scooters could be scrapped from the Melbourne CBD after a spike in complaints about the electronic two-wheelers.

The Melbourne Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece is set to move a motion on Tuesday afternoon to cancel the contracts with e-scooter providers Lime and Neuron.

Any change would not effect privately-owned scooters.

Just last week council management provided elected members with a report recommending a host of new rules to crack down on users of the 1500 scooters currently in use in the city.

“I admit I was a supporter of the e-scooters when they when first started, but I am fed up with the rule breaking and seeing the scooters strewn all over the city like rubbish, cluttering our footpaths and creating a trip hazard and mobility challenges,” Mr Reece said last week.

The Herald Sun reports the mayor’s motion on Tuesday is expected to pass.

Mr Reece was sworn in as mayor last month; his predecessor was a supporter of the scooters.

The electric scooters have been subject to a long-running trial overseen by the state government.

In July the state government decided the trial had been successful and from October e-scooters would be permitted to operate permanently, but councils still held the right to enter into contracts with scooter companies.

The City of Port Phillip and the City of Yarra are expected to allow the continuance of e-scooters in their patches.

Hundreds of people have been admitted to Melbourne hospitals as a result of e-scooter crashes in the past six years.

The lord mayor is expected to make his motion at a council committee meeting at 5.30pm on Tuesday.

Neuron seemed surprised by the lord mayor’s move.

“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,” Neuron Mobility Australian general manager Jayden Bryant told NewsWire.

“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, emphasising “their” in his written comments.

“This goes over and above the reforms announced by the state government.”

The Neuron general manager says the company has invested “significant” amounts into new technology, including AI cameras to detect footpaths.

“If the recommendations provided by council officers (in the earlier report) were adopted, it would make the city’s e-scooter program the most tightly regulated in the world,” Mr Bryant said.

Thousands of people relied on scooters daily, including those who did not own a car, he said.