Charlotte has embraced scooters in a big way.
Just one month in, more than 20,000 people have already taken 66,220 trips on electric scooters, according to June ridership data just published by the city of Charlotte.
These eye-popping numbers are despite there being less than 600 electric scooters in the city, from two companies: Bird and Lime.
Key scooter statistics.
- The average scooter rider took about three trips in the first month.
- The average ride lasted 14 minutes and spanned a mile and a half
- A total 98,000+ miles traveled on Charlotte’s e-scooters in the month of June.
Those three data points come from the city of Charlotte. Now for some data from an Agenda analysis.
- Each scooter on Charlotte’s streets was used an average of 110 times in the month of June and ridden roughly 163 miles.
- Scooters brought in total revenue of about $205,000 in the first month, or around $342 per scooter. This is at the standard pricing of $1 to unlock and then 15 cents per minute.
These companies have nearly made back their capital investment in the scooters in just the first month.
[Agenda related story: I rode a Bird scooter 14 miles in one day. Here’s what I learned]
Scooters are blowing bikes out of the water.
While scooters were introduced at the end of May, dockless bike-sharing programs have been in Charlotte since November.
The scooters are proving to be way more popular.
Charlotteans took just 33,000 trips on dockless bikes in June, according to data from the city, less than half the number of scooter trips.
And that’s with many more bikes on the road. In this pilot program, four companies are allowed a maximum of 500 bikes apiece — or 2,000 dockless bikes compared with 600 scooters.
Since November, about 58,000 people have taken 191,583 total trips on dockless bikes, according to the city’s data. If scooters keep up their pace, they’ll do in three months what it took bikes 8 months to accomplish.
What comes next?
Undoubtedly, some of these scooter riders were just trying them out for the novelty.
If the bikes are any indication, scooter will continue to bring in new riders as time passes. Nearly half of June’s bike riders were new users, according to the city.
Expect ridership of e-scooters to remain strong in Charlotte.
With that presumed success, Charlotte’s City Council is likely to expand the number of scooters.
The two scooter companies are currently limited to 300 scooters each during what the city is calling the “Shared Mobility Pilot Program,” which is expected to last through October.
Charlotte will then have the option of allowing more scooters from Lime and Bird, or the City Council could opt to contract with a company for a Charlotte-branded scooter program.
[Agenda related story: Op-ed: The problem with scooters isn’t that we have too many — it’s that we need thousands more]
Want to share your opinion on scooters with the city?
They’re running a survey here.
