Page 1887 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 June 2021
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We have seen now almost nine months of operations. It is clear that e-scooters are turning out to be a popular transport choice for Canberrans, particularly amongst younger Canberrans, under the age of 35, who have responded to this new form of transport with a lot of enthusiasm. Canberrans are using e-scooters for a range of different reasons, mainly for leisure but also to connect with public transport and get to and from education and work.
I can advise the Assembly that Canberrans have taken more than one million rides since the e-scooter scheme launched. To be exact, between 1 September 2020 and 31 May 2021, Canberrans took a total of 1,076,571 e-scooter rides, with a median of 4,000 daily trips. These numbers are very encouraging, especially as the scheme currently operates only in central Canberra and part of Belconnen.
The most common length of a trip is less than a kilometre, and most trips go for less than 10 minutes. Trips are more popular in the afternoons, with the afternoon peak having about 2.5 times more usage than the morning peak. I do not think it will surprise anyone that there is a strong correlation between usage and good weather—like other seasonality across our public transport statistics. We also know that e-scooters are particularly popular in and around our dining and recreation precincts, such as the city centre and Braddon.
The ACT Transport Strategy 2020 has a vision for a transport network that supports a compact, sustainable and vibrant city. Micro-mobility, potentially including e-scooters, will play an important role in achieving this. E-scooters provide a new way for people to connect to public transport and mean that fewer people need to get into their cars and move about our city.
We also should not underestimate the potential role that e-scooters can play in reducing emissions. Transport currently accounts for around 60 per cent of the ACT’s emissions profile. Most of these emissions are from private vehicles. The climate strategy has focused on reducing transport emissions by reducing car use and encouraging a shift to active travel and public transport. E-scooter usage is an emissions-free way of achieving this.
The emerging success of the shared micro-mobility scheme is not supported only by uptake numbers. As Mr Pettersson referred to in his motion, in April 2021, we undertook a community survey through the ACT online YourSay panel. This was completed by 1,907 people. The results show a high level of support for the e-scooter scheme, with 65 per cent of the community in favour of it. The survey also found that 63 per cent of Canberrans feel that the scheme could be extended into other areas of Canberra. Preferred areas for expansion were broadly similar across regions of Canberra and strongly related to the area in which people live. The majority of respondents strongly favoured expanding the scheme into whichever region they live in. Mr Pettersson’s motion today is an example of local advocacy building on that feedback.
That said, the survey clearly highlighted some areas that we can improve upon. Issues raised included unsafe behaviours, such as riders scooting while affected by alcohol;
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