Beam, in collaboration with Napier City Council, will launch a two-year e-scooter trial in late November, working towards a permanent roll-out.
The eco-friendly mode of transport is popular elsewhere, and Beam has operations already in Auckland, Whangarei, Wellington and Whanganui. The company is looking to work with other councils around the country too.
Starting small, the plan is to work up to about 200 e-scooters across the city in the warmer months. This will ultimately be based on how much demand there is.
Beam head of sustainability, Frederick Conquer said it had been a long process to get to this point. Plans, demonstrations and safety and risk planning have all been worked through with the council, and now mapping was underway.
There were mobility, financial and environmental benefits to adopting them, he said.
“Beam scooters allow people to get around the city in a safe, sustainable and low cost way. Instead of having to own your own vehicle you can use one, park it and go about your day.”
The starting price will be a $1 unlock fee, and .65 cents per additional minute, as well as a subscription model for a certain amount of time on a daily or weekly basis. There will be concession passes for students as well, he said.
Conquer said they are still working on the subscription passes, so prices were not confirmed as yet.
The geographic area was still being mapped, but the goal is to be able to get people out to places like EIT or Ahuriri or Marine Parade. Consultations are under way with local landowners.
“Within the general urban area of Napier you’ll be able to operate. There will be some places where there will be restricted operating. One of the benefits of a shared system is that we can control things centrally, we can do things like place speed limit restrictions in the heritage precinct of the CBD, or in places where we don’t want riding like the sunken gardens. We can slow them right down or make it so they unable to pass certain areas.”
Consultation with the public would take place about these considerations, Conquer said.
Like everything else these days, access is via a mobile application, so I asked how people who don’t have or use a smart phone might also access the scooters.
Conquer said that one person can unlock multiple scooters, so as long as one person in a group had the app, that was one way to go about it. Other solutions may be forthcoming in future, but at this stage it was about keeping it simple, he said.
Beam was founded in 2019 and has learned a fair bit as it has been growing. Now they have double kick stands for wind resistance; they’ve developed ‘virtual docks’ identified through the apps, which means you can return a scooter to those spots; and they offer online and in-person safety training. Beam is certified climate neutral and plans to go carbon negative by 2025.
Beam’s operations will also create living wage local jobs to manage the trial. Because everything is done inhouse and the scooters are run on batteries that are charged in a warehouse, the operation will create up to 14 jobs for Napier – both full time and part-time, Conquer said.
“We are going to have a city manager for the warehouse team, technicians. We are hiring for quite a few roles now.”
Pip Thompson, general manager of Napier City Business welcomed the arrival of the e-scooter trial to the CBD. She said it would be a good opportunity to free up parking spaces in the city centre, by commuters parking further away and scooting in.
Richard Munneke, NCC acting chief executive, said the council was excited about the arrival of the e-scooters, which had been successful elsewhere. The council had been working with Beam to ensure user-safety guidelines were in place.
“We are continuously focussed on mitigating the impacts of climate change, making e-scooters available is a great initiative to encourage people to opt for more climate friendly modes of transport while also reducing dependency on cars,” he said.
Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.
Photos: Supplied
Very exciting! Great for Napier :)