E-scooters log more than 40,000 trips in ABQ

Program has been in city for three months

The orange electric scooters now available around Downtown, Old Town, Uptown and other parts of the city have been responsible for more than 40,000 trips in three months, according to ridership data provided to the city of Albuquerque.

Zagster, the Boston-based company running the local scooter program, told the city its Spin-branded vehicles fielded 12,707 trips in the roughly monthlong period that ended Aug. 27. That’s down from 20,814 in the first month of service but up from 9,742 in July.

The company — the first to rent e-scooters in Albuquerque — is scheduled to make its first quarterly payment to the city of Albuquerque. The $58,613 bill includes a daily fee per scooter and rent for the scooters’ “drop zones” around the city.

“It’s on track with what we’ve anticipated,” Albuquerque Planning Director Brennon Williams, whose staff oversees the agreement, said of the program.

The company has not incurred any fines, though the city’s rules enable penalties when the company fails to retrieve scooters that are disabled or improperly parked within 24 hours of notification.

Managing the program has placed little burden on city staff, Williams said, noting that most of the work happened when officials were setting the original rules and negotiating the Zagster agreement.

“Current review and oversight is often limited to Zagster’s monthly report submittals,” Williams said in an email.

The daily ridership breakdown provided to the city shows that activity spikes on weekends and drifted downward after the initial month of service.

Individual scooters are getting significantly less use than they did at the outset, with 0.6 trip per day compared to 1.51 in the first month, according to the reports.

But that also reflects an expanded fleet: Zagster started with 250 vehicles in late May but quickly ramped up and had 744 deployed as of late August.

A company spokesman did not respond to questions Monday.

But a representative told the Journal last month that Albuquerque’s program had been a success and said “excessive heat” contributed to the drop in ridership during the summer, something she said happened in other markets too.

Zagster is the only company renting e-scooters in Albuquerque, doing so as part of the city’s one-year pilot program.