Lime dockless scooters now available in Tempe
Aug 31, 2018, 9:00 PM | Updated: Sep 4, 2018, 10:10 am
FILE - In this Tuesday, June 26, 2018 photo, a man parks his rented dockless scooter outside of a restaurant in Atlanta. Cities across the U.S. are grappling with how to deal with electric scooters that have begun appearing in sidewalks overnight without any regulations. Lawsuits and cease-and-desist orders have quickly followed the arrival of California-based companies, Bird Rides Inc., LimeBike and Spin. Milwaukee will ask a judge Friday, July 12, 2018, to order Bird to remove their scooters.(AP Photo/Brinley Hineman, File)
(AP Photo/Brinley Hineman, File)
PHOENIX — Tempe residents have likely seen the dockless, Lime green bikes parked around town. Now the California company is adding electric scooters to its fleet of transportation options.
Sam Dreiman, director of strategic development at Lime, said the Lime-S electric scooters were recently placed in Tempe.
“You’re able to go for a ride and get to wherever you need to go using an affordable, convenient and environmentally friendly mode of transportation,” he said. “You can avoid traffic. You can avoid parking issues.”
First, riders need to download the Lime app on their phones and create an account. Then once they find a scooter using a map in the app, they scan its QR code to unlock it.
It costs $1 to unlock the scooter and 15 cents per minute to ride.
Once riders are done with the scooter, they can leave it any safe place that’s not obstructing a path and lock it back up using the app.
There has been concern about the idea of dockless vehicles in the past — namely, users leaving the bikes and scooters in inconvenient or dangerous places — but Dreiman said any misplaced scooters should be taken care of quickly because the company picks up the scooters every night.
Lime locates the scooters using GPS trackers, then recharges them all night before redeploying them in popular areas the next morning.
There is a customer service support phone line and email available for anyone who has a negative experience with the scooters, Dreiman said.
Lime chose to bring the scooters to Tempe partly because of the large student population, Dreiman said, but also because Tempe’s pervasive traffic, favorable terrain and “great weather” make scooters a good addition to available modes of transportation.
The scooters are typically popular among the student population, but they have also been well-liked by middle-aged and older riders in other cities, showing there is no specific target population, Dreiman said.
“This is really meant for anyone that needs to get from one place to another,” he said.
KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Griselda Zetino contributed to this report.
