Goosed.ie understands that Dublin City Council has started looking into the possibility of operating an electric scooter share scheme. Dublin City Council has drafted a Prior Information Notice which outlines the councils plans to gather information from “interested parties” on “possible factors that could be used in assessing a Dublin City Council Public E-Scooter Sharing Schemes”.
Electric scooters have been mooted by many, myself included, as a fantastic solution to many transport problems in Ireland. Unfortunately, Government has been painfully slow at legalising scooters. This has led to many instances where members of the public unknowingly were breaking the law by using electric scooters. Minister for Transport, Eamon Ryan, has said the Government is working on introducing legislation for electric scooters and it’s believed this will pave the way for private ownership and public share schemes.
There is a massive pent up demand for electric scooters. There are equal amounts of shared schemes waiting in the wings for their chance to meet the demand. In Ireland along you can expect to see the likes of Tier, Voi and Bolt eager to get involved from day one.
Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity and seeing the massive success that is Dublin Bikes, Dublin City Council is investigating how “operators of public e-scooter sharing schemes, to bid for at least one licence to operate a scheme in the Dublin City Council area”.
From the PIN Dublin City Councils has drafted, there are some really interesting insights in terms of their priorities. For example, The Council have outlined the criteria that would deem a potential vendor suitable. Along with e-scooter safety features, driver safety features and the ability to implement parking management, the Council is also interested in keeping “user charges as low as possible” while encouraging short trips above long trips with the fees for the service “expected to achieve this”. This is similar to Dublin Bikes where the longer you use the service the more likely you are to be pay a larger fee.
This is a completely expected development. Dublin City, probably more than anywhere else, desperately needs transport solutions. It’s great to see Dublin City Council investigating this, even if it is all a bit late in the day. I’d likely look at government for causing that, not the Council.
