E-scooter safety prioritised amid initial concerns by authorities during trial in Salford

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Safety for e-scooters in Salford has been made a priority by the company that launched them after initial concerns raised by council. Lime has announced it will launch its Gen4 e-scooter by June as part of a new £1 million investment in Greater Manchester.

It follows the success and positive reception of the city’s e-scooter trial, with Lime recently reaching 250,000 e-scooter rides in the city - 190,000 of which were made in the past 12 months alone. The extension of the trial with Salford City Council and TfGM until the end of the year has now been confirmed after concerns over rider safety raised by councillors - where public doubters were proved wrong with only one accident involving the scooters during the trial period.

Conor Chaplin, Public Policy at Lime said: “We consider the safety of our vehicles, those riding them and members of the public our biggest priority.

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“Part of our commitment includes having a wide range of safety features incorporated into our software such as geofencing of low-speed and no-ride zones, real-time GPS tracking accurate to 30cm and on board vehicle sensors that alert us when a scooter leaves the service area or if damage is incurred. All this means we can control how the scooter behaves in real time based on its geographical location, whether that is slowing it down or completely stopping it when required.

“To support this even further we have an experienced operations team based in Salford who regularly patrol the service area, which has resulted in minimal damage to our scooters in Salford over the course of the trial, with 99.99 percent of Lime trips ending without