Montgomery green-lights electric scooter rentals: What you need to know
Get ready for the roll out.
Electric scooter company Bird plans to set up dozens of personal motorized vehicles for rent across Montgomery over the next few weeks. The scooters are popular across the Southeast, especially on college campuses and in downtown areas. But expect them to show up here in other places, too, after the Montgomery City Council signed off on the company’s plans this week.
“We hope that by March at the latest we’ll have some scooters on the ground,” said Bruno Lopes, the company’s senior manager of government partnerships.
How does the rental process work?
Download the Bird app and load a credit card on it. “There are options for people who don’t have a credit card or any banking systems behind them, but the majority of folks will do it this way,” Lopes said.
Use the app to find a vehicle, then unlock it and start riding by taking a picture of the QR code.
To end the ride, take another picture of the code and select “end ride.”
Places to park can vary by your area of town. In downtown, where parking spots are at a premium, expect to see designated drop-off points nicknamed “nests.” In less dense areas of town, expect to be able to park off the street or in other public areas that don’t block right-of-ways.
How much will they cost?
$1 to unlock and then 49 cents a minute. Expect an option for people who would rather pay by the month, as well as discounts for students, military members and other groups.
Where will they be?
While they’ll be concentrated in downtown, the plan is to roll out scooters across the city. “If you’re going to be a serious form of transportation you want to have equitable access to the entire community. The operating area really is the whole city,” Lopes said.
Are these Segways?
No, they’re proprietary “BirdThree” scooters. They’ve got a kickstand built to stay upright in 50 mph winds and tires that self-inflate when punctured. They take about 6 hours to charge and will travel about 35 miles on a single charge. The top speed is 15 miles per hour, a limit that was set by the city.
How do they stay charged?
A team of local workers will handle the charging. The idea is to have at least 80% of the fleet charged and available at all times.
How many scooters will Montgomery get?
The company has programs in cities across the Southeast with populations ranging from 20,000 to almost a million people, and each gets a different number of scooters. They expect Montgomery to need about 150 to 250 scooters, but that total could rise or fall depending on ridership. They plan to spread the word through local colleges, nonprofits and others.
How often do the vehicles go missing?
Tracking technology like GPS and other safeguards has made it rare for scooters to go missing, Lopes said. "That was a problem early on in the industry, but as the technology progressed we’ve gotten wise as to how to prevent that. It’s not just us, it’s the industry as a whole that’s gotten better," he said.
Brad Harper covers business and local government for the Montgomery Advertiser. Contact him at bharper1@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Montgomery green-lights electric scooter rentals: What we know
