2023-05-22 12:25:47
After a shaky start in Quebec, the electric scooter industry is trying to get back in the saddle. The deployment of several pilot projects this summer should allow the province, but also the City of Montreal, to see “how far the technology has evolved” since the initial failures, assure many companies.
“We are ready to show how we have grown as a company, as a partner. The cities that are going to trust us from now on are going to see very quickly the new types of technology and vehicles that we have,” said Lime government relations manager for Eastern Canada, Robert Gardner, in an interview with The Press.
Three years after the abandonment of self-service electric scooters in Montreal, Laval announced in April that it intended to try the adventure this summer, with a pilot project. The City ensures that it will impose several conditions on the operator to curb illegal parking, which had led to the failure of the Montreal experience.
Several other cities are also said to be in discussions at this time. Even Montreal has not completely closed the door: scooters will be authorized during the summer at Parc Jean-Drapeau.
Among the conditions imposed by the Ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable, we note, for example, georeferencing technology to clearly indicate to users the precise location of parking stations. This technology could make it possible to prevent a user from terminating the reservation of any badly parked scooter. Quebec is also calling for restricted speed traffic zones.
In recent months, several electric scooter operators, including Lime, Bird, Lyft and Neuron Mobility, have registered with the Quebec Lobbyists Registry. The reason is almost always the same: to have the Ministry adopt “favourable orientations towards self-service electric scooters without anchoring, for example by adopting municipal regulations governing their use”.
“It’s their last chance”
For the expert in transport planning at the University of Montreal Pierre Barrieau, the reality is that few or no companies “have really been able to solve the problems that we saw in Montreal in [2019, au cours du projet pilote]namely illegal parking and delinquent behaviour”.
Technology still can’t detect when people are two on a scooter, or when they’re drunk.
Pierre Barrieau, transport planning expert at the University of Montreal
“If these companies believe that their technology has evolved, let them demonstrate it. But it’s clearly their last chance, ”slips Mr. Barrieau. In his eyes, the electric scooter “finally perhaps has more of a place in the suburbs than in a very dense urban environment”, where the potential differences are “many”, according to him.
Gardner says the industry “understands that different jurisdictions want different technologies.” “We just want to collaborate and show the best we have to offer,” he says. He does not hesitate to call the arrival of the service in Montreal a “fiasco”, which had abandoned electric scooters in February 2020 when it was noted that barely 20% of the scooters used in 2019 were parked in reserved areas. But since then, “several things have changed”, continues the businessman.
“The financial penalties against an individual who improperly ends a ride, for example, is just much higher than in 2020. In South Carolina, where we have instituted this type of mandatory parking, we have a rate of 96% success for our trips. It’s a huge change,” says Robert Gardner.
“Convinced” to get there
At Bird Canada, the head of marketing and partnerships, Sara Evans Saunders, says she is “excited” about the possibility of expanding her activities in Canada and Quebec. His group, which already serves 13 Canadian cities, including Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary, says it is “convinced that scooters can play an important role in improving mobility in Quebec cities”.
As for technologies, everything is in place, she says. “Each scooter is tracked by GPS. In particular, the City may require driving speed restrictions in certain areas and on places where vehicles are parked. Our technology now has more than 200 sensors that can report the status of each scooter and trigger automatic checks to improve efficiency and the state of the park,” says the manager.
Bird also says it has developed “technology to create virtual parking spaces that force the driver to park in a designated area, and verify the parking space using your phone’s camera. portable “. “We operate this model successfully in many cities around the world,” swears Mme Evans Saunders.
Five participants so far
So far, the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility says its pilot project has five participants: the cities of Montreal and Westmount as well as three companies, Bird Canada, Lime and Neuron Mobility. Laval, for its part, has not yet officially confirmed its participation in the project, but should do so very soon. “No other participation has been confirmed for the project to date,” said Ministry spokesperson Sarah Bensadoun. As for lobbying, she adds, “the companies Bird Canada and Neuron Mobility have submitted requests in recent months to participate in the pilot project with new models of electric scooters”. Bird Canada was authorized to participate in the project with the Bird Three model, and Neuron Mobility with the N3 model.
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