But instead running a scooter rental company became "who is best at navigating municipal RFPs" and the lack of availability brought people back to riding in -- and leasing/buying -- cars.
Rentable scooters require 24/7 staff with collection vehicles in nearly every municipality they exist, and municipalities have a right to demand a standard of service in addressing issues caused by the private scooter rental customers.
This solved the last mile problem in a fashion no one else has to date. Every thing else in comparison on both convenience and cost is a joke.
Moving some scooters off of an ADA ramp is the least of our worries. And I’m guessing less than 1% of these wound up in a river, not that any city would care if they didn’t feel threatened in their monopoly on solving traffic problems.
I don't know why on-demand public transit systems aren't more popular.
Edit: > Moving some scooters off of an ADA ramp is the least of our worries.
Probably because you're not the person who is called when someone with mobility issues can't get to a bus stop.
This is just a taxi.
OP just wants the government to monopolize transit because he really doesn’t want folks having autonomy of mobility.
I realize you’re accustomed probably to arguing by using these types of straw men with preserved topics that cannot be criticized. But you’ll need to show some data exhibiting how many ramps were blocked by scooters versus other obstacles around here to garner any credibility.
What I take particular objection to is the suggestion that it’s my lack of empathy for folks needing accessible ramps that drives my affection for having a more convenient life where traffic problems can actually be solved.
If only that's where these scooters were usually found...
For commuting these things are less convenient than an electric bike, more expensive, less quick, and less reliable.
In European cities these companies catered mostly to tourists using them for fun rather than actually replacing cars.
While locals had to deal with these scooters being absolutely littered everywhere as well as the riders ignoring all traffic rules and treating it like a n expensive toy.
If people want to replace their car they would use public transport or an electric bike. Or just buy one of these scooters directly.
You can ride them on sidewalks up to 6km/h, bike lanes and car lanes at up to 15km/h and if you have a driver's license, in car lanes at up to 20km/h. The police do actually enforce this, at least in Tokyo. 20km/h feels a bit unsafe at times because they accelerate quickly ahead of cars from a red light, but then you get suddenly overtaken by 5 cars going. much faster than you. Overall though these are pretty good policies and they are convenient without being a menace to others.
They are ¥200 for 30 minutes. I liked the original pricing better, which was ¥110 for the first 10 minutes, but either way they are cheap as a transit-extender but expensive to use for commuting, long journeys or leaving parked. This means they are highly available and reliable to use at the start or end of taking public transit. Tokyo has amazing trains but there are times you are 1-2km away from a station that takes you directly to home or work, but you need to transfer 3 times to get to that particular station. Or you want to pick up a pizza on the way home from your home station, but you'd have to walk 1.5km instead of 500m.
I'm also a mechanical engineer and it was cool to see the scooters becoming better (control, handling, suspension) with each iteration. Maybe that's a Japan thing because bird and other scooters/bikes in NA/EU just become heavier with each iteration to deal with vandalism.
I live in Luxembourg now and I pay something like €16/year to use rental e-bikes (up to 30 minutes per trip, you pay more after that). Sounds great but I use them less over time because they are broken in some way more often than not. Often the "e" part doesn't work and because they are built SO heavy to survive vandalism, they are very hard to pedal. Sometimes very, very hard and you can feel vibrations in the brake lever. I don't know what's up with this, maybe overspeed is incorrectly detected. Sometimes you can depress the lever a bit and reduce it. Sometimes you can't so you try to swap bikes at the next parking place. When you do that there is a good chance you can't take another bike for 5 minutes, and a small chance you can't take another bike until the next weekday when someone does inventory. The first bike will be physically locked but not register as returned so you can't take another. You've taken a bike for a reason instead of transit so chances are you are looking at a 30 minute walk to your destination. In one case I was charged about €20 and it took more than a year to get a reply by email. I didn't even check if I got the money back or not.