Source: The Guardian Image credit: Lucian Alexe, Unsplash

After being initially introduced quickly in Australia, e-scooter hire is stalling, with shared electric bikes increasing as a micromobility solution in various cities.

Although shared e-scooters were faster to take off than shared e-bikes in Australia, Zipidi industry consultant Stephen Coulter says that a “moral panic” about safety and injuries has set in, resulting in decreased usage.

“You’ve had moral panic, which has caused some [local governments] to overreact, like the City of Melbourne, who just withdrew them overnight back in September 2024,” he said.

All major cities in Australia (except Sydney) permitted e-scooter usage in early 2025, but that changed throughout the year due to safety concerns, decreasing accessibility, and unpopularity.

Coulter has expressed that state governments could help e-scooters return in 2026, with the Victorian and New South Wales governments approving share scheme operators, while the governments of Western Australia and Queensland have yet to respond to state inquiries.

Decreasing e-scooter usage in various Australian cities

Perth took away 1,000 shared e-scooters from its streets after a man died in an e-scooter crash in 2025. Following the incident, a Western Australian inquiry stated that e-mobility could return under tight regulation.

In Bendigo, 250 scooters were removed from the streets after users took fewer than 55,000 trips, missing adoption expectations.

Shared trips of the City of Adelaide’s fleet of 2,000 e-scooters decreased from 543,000 trips in 2024 to 514,000 in 2025.

Meanwhile in Melbourne, operators pulled their scooters from the city’s Yarra area after its council hiked costs, after being forced out of the CBD in 2024.

E-bikes replacing e-scooters

In Melbourne, Lime has a cap of 1,200 e-bikes for its inner city area.

Reflecting on the increasing take-up of e-bikes in Melbourne, Coulter expressed:

“Bikes are picking up in the absence of scooters and the operators are becoming better at aligning them with customer need.”

Meanwhile, Hobart adopted Beam bikes in May 2025, and the cities of Canberra and Adelaide have invited applications for e-bike and e-scooter operations.

With e-scooters bringing unexpected challenges to cities and “novelty-driven behaviour”, General Manager of e-bike and e-scooter operator Ario, Adam Rossetto, has explained the increasing popularity of e-bikes:

“[Shared] ebikes are coming back into the fore. They provide a more traditional approach to mobility … that delivers less stupidity, I think, from a section of users.”

Significant e-bike adoption in Sydney

Historically, e-scooters have been illegal in the New South Wales city for general public use.

In terms of e-bikes, usage has boomed, with shared electric bike trips almost doubling to 3.7 million trips in 2025.

Government data indicates that usage is still on the increase, with 600,000 New South Wales residents reportedly using a shared e-bike monthly, an increase of 100,000 from October 2025.

Having already deployed thousands of its bikes last year, Lime is aspiring to boost its ridership more in Sydney by bringing out redesigned bikes, subscriber discounts, and negotiating to expand further west of the city.