Shared e-scooters are here to stay in Tauranga, with council approving their continued use in the city.

People have travelled 710,000 kilometres on Lime scooters since the trial began in November 2020, which is nearly 18 trips around the earth.

At a Tauranga City Council (TCC) meeting on Monday the commissioners agreed to continue shared e-scooter use in the city, enabling council to find a permanent operator.

Data gathered by the council during the trial shows 104,000 people have taken at least one ride and there were 429,000 trips taken on a lime scooter.

There was 11 per cent growth in the number of trips taken from 2021 to 2022.

Usage of the scooters was the highest in the main Mount Maunganui beach and business area followed by the Tauranga CBD.

Saturday was the most popular day for rides with close to 100,000 trips taken on Saturday between November 1 2020 and February 25 2023.

Injuries from e-scooters was also considered low with less than 10 reported to council since the trial began.

It hasn't been a completely smooth run for the trial though, with complaints coming in thick and fast for the first two months.

There were 10 to 20 complaints per week during the first two months of the trial. By six months complaints were down to one or two a week and it has stayed at this level.

The council ran a survey about the e-scooters in October 2021 that showed the biggest issue people had with the scooters was them being parked inappropriately or blocking footpaths.

Fifty per cent of the 779 respondents were moderately or very concerned about the way the scooters were parked.

Findings showed 55 per cent of respondents agreed a shared e-scooter scheme should
continue to operate in Tauranga while 42 per cent disagreed.

E-scooters parked inappropriately was the biggest source of complaints to council. File photo: SunLive.

TCC cycle plan implementation programme manager Andy Vuong told the meeting there were some unsurprising findings from the survey.

'As you got older, you typically were against e-scooters and as you got younger, you typically were very much in favour of e-scooters,” he said.

The survey showed 76 per cent of respondents aged 16-24 had ridden a scooter and 33 per cent of those aged 85 or older had done so too.

Commission chair Anne Tolley said the 'biggest surprise” was the number of those aged 85 plus that were in support of the scooters and had ridden one.

Vuong said this was because they had only had a 'few responses” from that age bracket.

Commissioner Stephen Selwood wanted to know what proportion of the trips represented a mode shift out of cars.

Vuong replied around 25 – 29 per cent of rides replaced car trips. This data was based only on the shared scooters and private e-scooter trips were hard to track, he said.

Director of transport Brendan Bisley said people that used Lime scooters a lot for commuting purposes end up buying their own e-scooter.

'After a while it doesn't make sense to keep hiring and that's what the data doesn't track,” said Bisley. 'We're only picking up the ones that Lime use, so there will be a skew towards more recreational use.”

Commissioner Shadrach Rolleston said although the 29 per cent 'seemed small it was still useful to try and get people thinking about transport differently”.

'It's a worthwhile opportunity for us to promote and continue to support.”

The e-scooters also brought in around $28,750 in revenue which would continue under the permanent scheme if rides remained at the existing level.

Vuong had some recommendations to council to improve the issues around parking which included allocating designated parking spaces for e-scooters.

As well as creating a fees structure that enabled operators to incentivise riders to park in allocated zones or provide more staff to quickly resolve any issues.

The recommendations would come back to council once a permanent operator was secured.

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