Firm chosen for e-scooter scheme
E-SCOOTERS COMING TO NEWCASTLE IN 2021 AS OPERATOR PROMISES SAFETY IS ‘TOP PRIORITY’
HUNDREDS of electric scooters will be hitting the streets of Newcastle in 2021.
Tyneside’s first rental e-scooters are set to be delivered early next year in a new scheme which will give people a different way to get around the city.
Neuron Mobility has been chosen by Newcastle City Council to deploy the environmentally-friendly fleet of twowheeled vehicles in a bid to get more people out of their cars and cut pollution caused by road traffic.
Neuron says an initial 250 of its bright orange e-scooters will arrive in early 2021 and the number will “increase significantly” over the year, though the 12-month trial scheme still needs government sign-off to go ahead.
Teesside was chosen as the location for the UK’s first trial of an e-scooter hire project in July and council bosses in Newcastle have been keen to follow amid an emissions crisis which has also seen plans developed to charge some highpolluting vehicles to drive into the city.
Coun Arlene Ainsley, cabinet member for transport and air quality at Newcastle City Council, said: “Reducing transportrelated carbon emissions and air pollution is an urgent priority and this trial would help us to understand what role e-scooters could play in helping us to achieve this.
“We know e-scooters must be safe and used responsibly and t there are strict requirements on both the operator and on those using them to ensure high standards of health and safety are met.”
Concerns have been raised about their safety, the Middlesbrough scheme hitting the headlines when teenagers were spotted riding the vehicles on the A19 and people also complained about youngsters zipping through shopping centres on them.
A bike hire scheme from Mobike was also pulled from Newcastle and Gateshead last year.
The distinctive orange and silver bikes were the subject of numerous acts of vandalism, which saw them set on fire, abandoned, and dumped in the River Tyne.
However, Neuron says geofencing technology will control where its scooters can be ridden or parked and how fast they can travel in different areas - with plans to create slow-zones, no-ride zones and no-parking zones.
It will also deploy safety officers with hospital-grade disinfectant to keep e-scooters and helmets clean and help riders with the high-tech transport.
Zachary Wang, CEO of Neuron Mobility, said: “Safety is our top priority, it dic
tates our e-scooter design and also the way we operate them.”
Lib Dem opposition councillor Greg Stone said he was “not wholly confident the council has learnt the lessons” of either the Mobike scheme or Teesside’s e-scooter trial.
He said: “I have had a test drive of an e-scooter and enjoyed it but am not sure how fun it would be riding one on busy roads on a dark wet winter evening.”