Business & Tech
Portland E-Scooter Trial Comes To An End After 676,000 Rides
The 120-trial period put thousands of e-scooters on the streets of the city. Portland is considering whether to bring it back next year.
PORTLAND, OR — If you woke up Wednesday morning deciding today is the day you're finally going to try one of the e-scooters you've seen zipping by, some bad news — it's too late. Portland's 120-day trial period came to an end at midnight on Nov. 20.
Portland Bureau of Transportation officials will now start evaluating the reams of data they say they've been able to collect since July 23 when the program started. They will also look strongly at comments from residents who've ridden the scooters and who have encountered them.
Over the past four months, people have taken the 2,049 e-scooters in Portland on more than 676,000 rides that covered more than 775,000 miles.
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Portland received 25 cents for every ride, bringing at least $169,000 into city coffers.
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Three companies — Bird, Lime, and Skip Scooters — provided the e-scooters and will work to remove them from the streets.
City officials say that it could take a few days and ask Portland residents to contact the company if they see an e-scooter:
Bird
- 24-hour Customer Service: 1-866-205-2442
- Email: hello@bird.co
- Website: www.bird.com
Lime
- 24-hour Customer Service: 1-888-LIME-345 (1-888-546-3345)
- Email: support@limebike.com
- Website: www.limebike.com
Skip Scooters
- 24-hour Customer Service: 1-844-929-2687
- Email: support@skipscooters.com
- Website: www.skipscooters.com
The city will decide next year whether to have a second pilot program after considering data and community input.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation released preliminary data in October looking at what had been learned through the middle of the month.
As of Oct. 11, people had taken 472,069 trips with the average tip lasting 1.2 miles.
Officials also determined there needs to be more education because only 51 percent thought that riding in parks was illegal and only 34 percent thought riding on waterfront trails was illegal.
They also found that 6 percent of users had said they had decided to get rid of their cars and another 16 percent had considered it.
PBOT also discovered that the city took some time getting used to having the scooters around.
Over the first three weeks of the trial, the number of complaints rose steadily, reaching 417 a week before dropping.
Photo via PBOT.
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