The future of e-scooters in Melbourne has been thrown into doubt after two major operators announced plans to withdraw from an inner-city council area. The Yarra City Council voted to impose a 400% fee hike on operators. Lime and Neuron have responded by pulling their scooters off the streets.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Since they were introduced to the streets three years ago, e-scooters in the city of
00:07Yarra have been a hit and a miss, and soon they'll be gone.
00:20E-scooter operators Lime and Neuron today announced their withdrawal from the city of
00:25after the council voted last week to increase operator fees by 400% from $1 to $5 per e-scooter
00:33per day. A spokesperson for Neuron saying the fee hike was unsustainable.
00:38This was kind of done without any consultation to the operators on the feasibility and it's
00:42making it the highest fee in the world. The numbers just don't stack up.
00:46Oh mate, give me the smallest violin string in Australia.
00:49Yarra Council says the increase is unavoidable because it's staring down a $570,000 shortfall
00:55from the trial.
00:56It's a Pandora's box. If we start subsidising private companies, big private companies,
01:01every private company in Yarra is going to be knocking on our door saying we're going
01:03to have to sack people.
01:05But a permanent contract for e-scooters in the city of Yarra is still set to go to tender
01:09in September.
01:10I would predict that Lime and Neuron would also come back with a towel between their
01:13legs and try and get this contract back up and running again.
01:17Now that Lime and Neuron are pulling out of Yarra City Council, the only remaining
01:21council in Melbourne running an e-scooter trial is Port Phillip. Melbourne City Council
01:26banned shared e-scooters from its streets last year.
01:29I don't jump on a bandwagon that's looking at what's happening and says oh this is the
01:34death of e-scootering. I don't think that's going to happen. I think it will just take
01:37different forms.
01:39Darabin, Marybeck and Moonee Valley councils have proposed starting their own trials.
01:44But those wheels are not yet in motion.
01:47For more information visit www.fema.gov