E-scooter thrown in the river in York – but ‘lessons learned’ over scheme rollout

Rental e-scooters and e-bikes could be here to stay until at least March 2022, with the number available for hire increasing to up to 1,000.

But the scheme has had setbacks – including an incident leading to minor injuries, anti social e-scooter parking and a scooter being thrown in the river.

A City of York Council report says Tier, the company that runs the hire scheme, is supporting York’s Covid recovery and has “learned lessons” from the incidents that have been reported.

Irresponsible riding could lead to customers being banned and Tier has moved parking bays further away from the rivers after an e-scooter was thrown in.

Fewer than one in ten riders use the Tier helmets. Stickers have been added to alert users to the helmets and a pop-up has been created in the app to show people how to use them.

York has also seen a rise in people using private e-scooters, which are only allowed on private land. Tier and North Yorkshire Police are responding to the issue, the council report says.

E-bikes were introduced in April and 893 trips were taken in the first three weeks, with the average trip length at 3.9km.

The report adds: “The slow and phased roll-out has had some impact on usage. However since expanding the service area and increasing connectivity of the city, usage has improved, and is in line with other cities of a comparable size in Europe, where e-scooters are legal to use.”

The extension of the trial will be discussed at a meeting on Tuesday.