E-scooter ridership rebounds amid continued focus on safety

Ottawa's e-scooter ridership more than doubled in 2023 compared to 2022, even as more safety features rolled out.

The two e-scooter companies chosen for the fourth year of Ottawa's pilot program — Neuron Mobility and Bird Canada — rolled out 900 e-scooters in May and wrapped up last week.

"We've seen a huge increase in demand and ridership," said Isaac Ransom, Neuron's head of corporate affairs, in an interview with CBC Radio's All in a Day.

"Our riders travelled over 185,000 kilometres, which is pretty significant." 

The city says total trips this season topped out at about 179,000, more than double last year's 80,000.

Ransom partly attributes that to an expanded riding area this year.

The city says the ByWard Market, Glebe, Dows Lake, Sandy Hill, Centretown and West Centretown had the most e-scooters throughout the season.

Extra safety measures 

Earlier this year, the companies said ridership dropped in 2022 partly due to the city's "restrictive" policies and a late launch. The 2021 season saw about 490,000 rides and the debut in 2020, about 238,000.

The city says "safety and innovation were prioritized" this season.

It saw further rollout of safety features on e-scooters like GPS and AI technologies to help with more accurate locations of the scooters, a detection system that disengages the motor when a rider is on a sidewalk and apps requiring riders to provide proof of proper parking.

Ransom says the company is seeing a "normalization" of technology implemented for safer riding.

"Our riders are very good at understanding what the rules are now," Ransom said.

He said geofencing and an audible alerting system, used for when a scooter approaches pedestrians, have become helpful solutions to concerns raised in previous years by councillors and residents. 

The city says it's aware of three suspensions issued by the companies this season and most of the complaints received by the city were related to e-scooters improperly parked and sidewalk riding.

The city wants residents to submit feedback: a survey on the pilot is open until Friday.