Bird Rides Inc. Account Manager, Michael Ellis, provided an update during the regular council meeting work session on Tuesday afternoon about the program that aims to reduce car usage, traffic and carbon emissions across the world.
Beaumont has seen a total of 42,000 total bird trips with 11,000 unique riders since its February launch. The data presented to the council showed about 180,000 total miles ridden on Birds and about 25 Metric Tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions avoided.
In a breakdown of rides per month, there were 1,181 rides in February, 6,998 in March, 5,962 in April, 8,634 in May, 7,912 in June, 5,515 in July, 2,872 in August, 2,461 in September and 401 so far in October.
"We launched in Beaumont in February of this past year and since then we have seen a significant adoption of the program in a fairly short time frame," Ellis said.
But there have been a few issues.
Although riders are required to be 18 years old or older, Ellis said the program saw a large uptick of underage riding in June when schools were on summer break and abnormal level of users using Cash App and prepaid debit cards.
Two factors that could be related to the problem and that may be difficult to police could be parents providing their credit card information to underage riders or underage riders downloading the application to create accounts with their own payment methods.
To "combat" the problem, Ellis said the program has banned Cash App and prepaid debit cards under a preauthorization amount of $20.
"Since then, we have seen a large reduction of underage riding incidents in the city itself," Ellis said.
Following the update, Mayor Robin Mouton as well as Ward III Council member Audwin Samuels, and At-large Council member"A.J." Turner and Ward I Council member Taylor Neild discussed their concerns as they asked what could be done to prevent children from weaving into traffic.
"This is just not the safest thing I have seen," Neild said.
Turner did not believe the $20 preauthorization was a lot of money for a teenager and asked for the amount to be increased. Bird said the program could increase it to a more reasonable amount such as $40.
"One of the main things we are worried about is the safety of our youth riding on those scooters," Turner said. "I am big advocate of things for youth to do, but I just don't want to see any kids get injured."
Ellis said the program has methods to flag types of incidents. The mayor and council members were "pleasantly surprised" to learn that there has only been one reported medical incident reported to the safety team since February.
"It makes Beaumont one of the safer places to ride in Texas," Ellis said. "It equates to about 99.9% of our rides going without incident. Of course, these are reported rates but comparably this is better than average across the states."
Ellis recommended reporting incidents to a safety team, which will then reach out to the riders directly afterward. He noted there could be incidents that were not reported as was the case for Turner, who chuckled as he admitted to falling off one of the scooters and not reporting the incident.
The program also is working Beaumont officials on a new social media campaign to communicate with riders about expectations and risks of underage ridings. Potentially-underaged accounts have also started to be banned.
Additionally, the city can flag dangerous roads for geofencing, which uses GPS technology to hinder acceleration.
During the update, Ellis said geofencing was set up around the event center to address a concern regarding the number of nearby scooters. The event center is now marked as a no park and ride zone. The meter will continue running on a scooter left in a no-park zone.
The geofencing was increased to include the half block across the street and a buffer zone or slow zone with a 10-mph limit was also put into place as "a precaution to pedestrians in the area." A deployment cap has been set at 25 in the event center area and 45 in the broader downtown area, and fleet managers are also working to address clutter with newly developed technology, Ellis said.
"While this has affected ridership a good deal, we want to work with the city and the property owners in the downtown area to make sure the program is working for everybody and that scooters are not ending up on their property," Ellis said.
The program sees up to 250 scooters deployed across the city at any given time and sometimes higher on the weekends.
Aside from the apparent environment benefit, the program appears to also be helping workers commute and support local businesses.
About 915 of the 11,000 total unique riders fall under the commuter profile of the program, which has seen a total of more than 3,500 commuter rides. The commuter profile was created to show that residents are not only using the scooters recreationally, but also to get to and from work, Ellis said.
"These could be residents who do not have a car, who do not use existing public transportation or don't have a public transit nearby," Ellis said. "The commuter numbers we are seeing are pretty significant."
While there appears to be a high concentration of users in downtown Beaumont, Bird is also being used across the city with a large segment in the southwest and northwest corridors.
"Something to note about this level of adoption is that it has had a positive impact on local businesses," Ellis said.
Ellis shared a story about a man who credited the arrival of the scooters for saving his restaurant. A study conducted in 2021 by Emory University's School of Business found that every deployed e-scooter brings in around $2,200 annually in increased incremental spending at local shops and restaurants.
"With just a couple hundred scooters on the road for a given year, that is almost half a million dollars spent at local businesses and restaurants," Ellis said.
Mouton said some residents wish to turn off the scooters at dark. Ellis said he has discussed with city staff the operating hours and agreement, which currently are from 4 a.m to midnight. He is willing to work with the city but noted data show that 30% to 50% of rides take place in the hours that would be cut short. He also noted that second-shift workers use the program after they get off work as well as early risers.
"When you think about making this a sustainable program, our fleet managers do rely on that revenue to survive," Ellis said. "So, it would typically result in either us letting go of one or two of the fleet managers or potentially losing the program outright. I don't want to be an alarmist by any means, but it is a significant portion of our revenue."
Ellis said the city's current one-year agreement ends in March or April. The city's revenue share is 5 cents per ride. The ride costs $1 to start, 39 cents a minute or 42 cents a minute there after. He estimated a couple of miles to cost about $5 to $8.
Turner said the population has a median age of 33 years old and that he has had positive feedback from the age group and families about the program.
Ellis said Bird wants to be part of the downtown revitalization and that it has found the program brings business and tourism to the area. He said the program has an interest in partnering with the museums, as it believes it offers a "helpful service,' and they are happy with how the ridership is going in Beaumont.
© 2022 the Beaumont Enterprise (Beaumont, Texas). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
