Only a few years ago, e-scooters were a novelty in Australia. Now, they can be found in capital and regional cities all over the country.
Lake Macquarie City Council is the first NSW council to trial e-scooters, with 100 purple e-scooters rolling out across the city next week for use on four selected shared paths.
Beam's riders have already ridden more than 11 million kilometres in Australia to date, with 30,000 kilometres ridden in Lake Macquarie on our purple e-bikes.
Lake Macquarie residents and visitors embraced the introduction of e-bikes to the city in July, with a growing reliance on the shared service for not just leisure rides, but work and study commuting.
The arrival of e-scooters will bring more change for the community, offering additional choice for commuters, but probably raising concerns and questions about how the e-scooters will operate.
Rest assured, the shared e-scooters we are introducing are powered by similar advanced technology behind Beam's e-bikes, with even more features and operational controls to ensure they are integrated into the city in a safe and sustainable way.
Beam has a strong emphasis on safety, investment in technology to monitor operations and in education for not only riders, but the broader community.
We have zero tolerance for reckless behaviour, and take steps to address this.
For example, we are able to control the speed of e-scooters on the trial paths to prevent speeding, block rider access to 'no ride' areas, and detect and correct rider behaviour as it happens.
Each shared e-scooter is capped at a maximum speed according to NSW legislation.
Every rider is educated on, and acknowledges, the riding rules before being allowed to start their ride.
Our state-of-the-art GPS navigation system controlling each e-scooter is constantly updated with new 'no ride' and 'slow' zones, automatically adjusting the speed of each vehicle. It's called 'geofencing' and it is an important tool in keeping e-scooters out of certain locations.
We also make our purple Beam fleet as safe as possible and are constantly adding features to improve the experience.
For example, our e-scooters in Lake Macquarie will have mobile phone holders with wireless charging capability, a warning bell, a double kick-stand for anti-tipping, triple brakes, and a Bluetooth-locked helmet.
To maintain city amenity, our virtual parking docks use technology and GPS to direct riders to appropriate parking spots. Riders have to park their e-scooters at a designated parking spot, and when they finish their ride, we ask them to take a photo so we know it is parked safely.
If a rider does the wrong thing, we already know a fair bit about them. Every e-scooter has a QR code, which means every e-scooter can be tracked and monitored 24/7, with us knowing who the registered rider is at any moment.
This helps us and the police with tracking down riders not doing the right thing.
In the event that bad behaviour occurs, we investigate every single report made through our 24/7 customer service channels to ensure the actions of some don't ruin a good experience for others.
Rest assured, safety is our priority, with our flagship rider education and enforcement program, the Beam Safe Academy, to be introduced to the city.
Our three-strikes policy ensures those doing the wrong thing - such as tandem riding, dangerous riding and riding without a helmet - are barred from our platform.
We're excited about the introduction of e-scooters in Lake Macquarie, and to be building on the shared micromobility options we can offer to both residents and visitors.
We're committed to bringing the latest in micromobility technology to the city, and are looking forward to working collaboratively with the community to make shared e-scooters a success.
We are here to listen to feedback, and will make changes to our operations as we understand more about how the community are using shared micromobility.
We look forward to growing our presence in the city and to seeing our e-bikes and e-scooters support modal shift to sustainable transportation.
Tom Cooper is General Manager ANZ for Beam
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