The 250-strong fleet will be available to hire across Dunedin Central, North Dunedin, South Dunedin and Musselburgh, making the city the second in New Zealand after Auckland to operate the distinctive orange e-scooters.
Neuron Mobility chief executive Zachary Wang said the next-generation N3 e-scooters have been built with a focus on rider safety.
They have larger, 29cm wheels and wider footplates than other e-scooters, making them more stable to ride.
He said they also featured an app-controlled helmet lock, which secured a safety helmet to each e-scooter, electronically releasing it to use at the start of the booking.
It also offered a 50c discount to those who used the helmets.
The scooters can travel at speeds up to 25kmh, but geo-fencing technology would electronically control how fast they could travel in certain areas of the city, as well as where they could be ridden and parked.
In high pedestrian areas, speeds would be limited to 10kmh.
Riders would also benefit from voice guidance to educate them on how to travel safely, and a major feature was that the scooter could detect if someone had fallen off, he said.
The "topple detection feature" would alert Neuron’s operations team, which would send a message to the rider’s mobile phone, asking if they were all right and providing a means of calling 111 with the push of a button.
Neuron Mobility e-scooters was founded in Singapore in 2016, and operates in the United Kingdom and 10 locations in Australia and New Zealand, including Brisbane, Darwin, Adelaide, Canberra, Townsville and Auckland.
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Comments
If there's one thing that keeps me out of the George St area it's scooters ridden on footpaths...
Just more junk for pedestrians to trip over!!
Excellent. Lime will have to up their game now, in terms of price and safety, if they want to remain.
prepare for nits ???