E-scooters have been in Airdrie for a few months and while the city has received a few complaints, this season overall has been a success.

Airdrie had two different e-scooter providers: Neuron Mobility and Bird Micro-Electric Mobility. Airdrie is currently in its third and final year of the pilot program.

Chris MacIsaac, Team Leader for Transit at the City of Airdrie talked about one highlight they have seen so far.

"For 2024, we've received half the number of complaints from residents compared to 2023."

Largely, this time last year, most of the complaints were around parking with people leaving their e-scooters somewhere that was inconvenient for others.

"We work with both our providers, Neuron and Bird to ensure that their riders are educated with the proper etiquette for parking."

This year, the city hasn't seen anything out of the ordinary as of yet when it comes to concerns. The city has seen some reports of e-scooters being found in places where they shouldn't have been left (ponds, canals, roadways, things like that).

"In those situations, both the providers: Neuron and Bird, will reach out to the last rider to ensure that they were not responsible for that type of behaviour. They are monitored, so anytime any scooter is picked up or shifted, it does trigger the GPS on board."

The service providers would have a time and date when anything out of the ordinary would happen, according to MacIsaac. At the end of the summer months, MacIsaac will return to Airdrie City Council to present how the three years went overall and the council will decide what happens with e-scooters from there.

"We fully anticipate a similar model moving forward where we have service providers that have the scooters in our community."

According to Bird, they continued to see strong ridership in 2023. Airdrie saw well over 13,000 rides with 40,000 kilometres across rides. Bird had riders that enjoyed the program and took over 190 rides last season.

For Neuron Mobility last year, Airdrie riders racked up over 69,000 kilometres. 52 per cent of all trips replaced a car journey, eliminating an estimated 11 tonnes of CO2 emissions in Airdrie.

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