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The micromobility firm Spin has marked its one million e-scooter trip milestone, almost doubling the number of trips made during the London trial schemes.
Spin, the micromobility wing of the Ford Motor Company, currently runs e-scooter services in six locations across the UK in Milton Keynes and Essex.
Since first launching in this country in August 2020, Spin found that more than half of riders link their e-scooter trips with public transport, while 70% get to their destination faster than other means of transport (based on a survey of 764 users in November 2021).
Earlier this week, Transport for London (TfL) announced that there had been around 585,000 e-scooter rides in the capital since the trials launched in June 2021, across the fleet of 3,500 scooters operated by multiple providers.
Dott has now hit the one-million-journey milestone after 18 months, with a fleet of 1,300 rental scooters currently in operation.
Steve Pyer, UK general manager at Spin, said: “It’s incredible to see so many residents and visitors embrace this new mode of transport and incorporate it into their day-to-day activities in UK cities and towns. The milestone of Spin riders taking more than a million e-scooter rides in Essex and Milton Keynes, especially those that would have otherwise taken by a passenger car brings us and hopefully to the government further evidence of how integral e-scooters are for the future of the UK’s cities and helps accelerate the legislative process later this year.”
Cllr Lee Scott, Essex County Council (ECC) cabinet member for highways maintenance and sustainable transport said: “There’s been a huge interest in the Essex e-scooter trial since it launched in December 2020 with nearly 700,000 rides to date. It’s really positive we’re seeing people switch their mode of travel, opting to use e-scooters instead of cars. This fits with our safer, greener, healthier ambition to encourage Essex residents to walk, cycle or scoot, especially for shorter journeys.”
He added: “Safety is of paramount importance to ECC and we have teamed up with fifteen local accessibility groups to form the Essex E-Scooter Trial Access Stakeholder Group. This group enables vulnerable road users to give us their feedback directly, which helps ECC keep the scheme constantly under review and make changes where necessary. For example, under the direction of this group, we have brought down the maximum speed of e-scooters from 15mph to 12.5 mph.”
Spin says it will continue to lead trials in Milton Keynes and it’s five Essex locations, in partnership with the Department for Transport, local authorities, and local stakeholder groups.
Read more: Dott raises additional $70 million in Series B funding round
Cllr Jenny Wilson-Marklew, cabinet member for climate action and sustainability at Milton Keynes Council said: “We want Milton Keynes to have the most sustainable transport system in the country by 2031, providing people with real transport choices. I am pleased to see this milestone support that vision, demonstrating a clear appetite among our residents and visitors to embrace greener transport methods.”
