THE fleet of purple e-bikes dotted around Lake Macquarie suburbs will soon be joined by matching purple electronic scooters.
Hundreds of Beam e-scooters will be rolled out as part of a 12-month "shared micromobility" trial in partnership with Dantia, the economic arm of Lake Macquarie City Council.
It follows the July launch of the eye-catching purple e-bikes, which have appeared in prominent spots across the local government area.
So far, 235 of the battery-powered e-bikes have been "deployed" in the area, although Dantia chief Joshua Sattler said "there's more to come", with up to 500 in total to be released.
Mr Sattler - who successfully rolled out a similar project in Darwin four years ago - said the bikes were being used once or twice a day, on average. But he expects that to grow as the weather warms up and the sun comes out.
"The weather has inhibited some of the uptake of the bikes," he said. "They're sitting at a utilisation rate of around once or twice a day.
"It's still pretty good numbers, considering the weather we have had, and we're really positive the e-scooters - on the back of a successful e-bike trial - will be successful again here in Lake Macquarie."
The e-scooters will start to appear on shared pathways in the next few weeks, but Mr Sattler said they'll start "softly" and deploy up to 500 as they work out where the community wants to use them.
Unlike similar projects in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, the e-scooters will only be operational on shared pathways - not roads - within Lake Macquarie. Mr Sattler hopes to extend some of the networks into parts of the Newcastle LGA.
"They won't be road-operational here in Lake Macquarie," he said.
"Even though the trial, under NSW Transport, says they can be, here we've taken a cautious approach to remove these things from the road and to only have them on the ride-share networks."
Mr Sattler said areas like Warners Bay were a natural fit for the e-scooters.
"That's where we'll see some of the economic consumption associated with these devices come back into the tills of small businesses - which is the main reason we are utilising and deploying this under a trial methodology here in NSW," he said.
"Previously, across the nation and in just about every other state, these things have already proven successful. I can't see why they wouldn't be successful in Lake Macquarie too."
Mr Sattler said they wanted to put "Lake Mac on the map" by offering a different experience for tourists, as well as the Lake Macquarie community.
Mr Sattler said that in the first three months, people tended to use the e-bikes and e-scooters "experientially".
"People want to grab them and jump on them just to try them," he said.
"Then from that point on, they start to become a trusted form of transport. People start not taking the car for that one or two or five kilometre trip, they jump on these and away they go.
"It imprints that approach to transport that you don't need to own your device, you can share a device - whether it's a scooter or a bike or even a car."
Mr Sattler said they had received some community feedback about the e-bikes being toppled over, and turning up where they shouldn't. But in the next few months the community would begin to see the operations provider responding to these within a certain time-frame and moving them around.
"That will help inform where these devices are actually trusted and reliable sources to be picked up from, and from there, the rest is set in stone - they become a trusted form of transport and we'll utilise them heavily," he said. "Some of the data we had from Darwin, where I deployed these devices four years ago, we had up to 2 million trips a year in a small city of 100,000. So I'd expect double that in Lake Macquarie."
Mr Sattler said the e-scooters would operate in much the same way as the e-bikes.
People will need to download the Beam app on their smart phone and enter a credit card number to create an account. From there, users scan the QR code on the device, unlock the helmet, and "enjoy the ride".
The app-based service advises users where they can and can't go on the devices.
After a $1 set-up fee, it costs about 45 cents per minute, and the app offers incentives and rebates to encourage users to park them back in the appropriate spots.
If you've seen the purple e-bikes, and want to know how to use them, watch our how-to video above to learn how to get started.
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