Shared seated e-scooters have arrived in Canberra

One hundred fifty seated e-scooters will be available to hire across Canberra from Friday. Photos: Beam.

In a first for the ACT, Beam has brought shared seated e-scooters to the capital.

A total of 150 seated e-scooters are now available to hire across Canberra, joining Beam’s existing fleet of 950 e-scooters. They entered service yesterday (15 September).

The seated e-scooters can be rented through Beam’s app for the same rates as Beam’s purple e-scooters.

They are designed with the same features as Beam’s standing e-scooters, including triple brakes, phone holders, a Bluetooth helmet lock and dual front suspension.

While e-scooters have already proved extremely popular across the ACT, Beam’s Canberra operations manager Ned Dale hopes the new seated e-scooters will enable more residents to enjoy and use them more often.

“Canberra has experienced great success with shared micromobility, which has become a preferred means of transportation for many Canberrans, and seen over 2.8 million kilometres ridden on Beams across Canberra to date,” he said.

“However, they have not been accessible to all members of the local community, which is a gap we are looking to address with the launch of seated e-scooters across the city.

“The seated e-scooters could also open up riding across longer distances, with a more comfortable seated position, encouraging an increased modal shift away from cars.

“Our goal is to bring safe, sustainable and equitable transportation to as many residents as possible, and we look forward to seeing the local communities embrace this new mode of transportation.”

The new seated e-scooters will make riding more accessible and encourage riders to take longer journeys.

Canberra’s e-scooter scheme is the largest in Australia, with nearly 3 million trips taken since Beam and its rival Neuron’s bright orange scooters first landed in the ACT in September 2020, according to the latest Ride Report data.

Overall, Canberra’s e-scooters have travelled 5.67 million kilometres. On an average day, e-scooters cover about 5600 kilometres across 3100 trips, with the average rider travelling at about 9.63 km/hr. The highest number of trips taken was 10,200 on Saturday, 7 January, this year, likely helped by Summernats.

The ACT’s e-scooter operating area now covers more than 132 square kilometres so if you really wanted to, you could scoot from Gungahlin to Tuggeranong. The new seated e-scooters offer a more comfortable option for longer journeys, with the hope it will encourage Canberrans to travel further.

It’s already been a success in other regions: the scheme was launched in Brisbane in July and WA in August, and early data showed trip distances had increased by 30 per cent from the average standing e-scooter trip distance of 2.5 kilometres.

To find out more, visit the Beam website or download the app.