Hundreds of Lime and Neuron e-scooters trucked out of Melbourne as ban deadline looms

About 1,500 e-scooters across Melbourne were on Monday being loaded, one by one, into trucks and taken out of city limits hours before a ban on rental operators took effect.

On Tuesday, the City of Melbourne's ban on shared e-scooters will begin, right before the AFL grand final weekend – one of the busiest times for users in the year. The two companies who operated schemes under a trial, Lime and Neuron, will be subjected to penalties if they do not remove the scooters from city streets by the morning.

It understood any rental e-scooters not collected will be impounded and providers required to pay a release fee for each vehicle held by the City of Melbourne .

In a statement, Neuron said it was "extremely disappointed" that operations in the municipality will cease at midnight on 24 September. "This follows the councillor vote to 'reset' the program, which was beyond our control," the spokesperson said.

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"We sincerely apologise to the hundreds of thousands of e-scooter riders who have relied on our service as a convenient and sustainable transportation option over the last two and a half years."

The spokesperson said Neuron looked forward to returning to Melbourne "when new opportunities arise".

A spokesperson for Lime said the company remained "optimistic" the ban will be repealed and was looking to place the scooters in other municipalities that may want to start their own trials.

"Lime is confident that our continued focus on safety, sustainability, and technological innovation will demonstrate the value of regulated shared e-scooter services," the spokesperson said.

Melbourne will join other global cities including Paris, Montréal, Rome, and Toronto in winding back or banning the use of shared e-scooters. Scooter users will still be able to hire them in both the City of Yarra and the City of Port Phillip, but will not be able to ride between the two, as the CBD ban has cut the two areas off.

The lord mayor, Nicholas Reece, supported the ban which was passed by council with a 6-4 vote in August and said there were serious safety concerns.

"There are just too many people breaking the rules – people not wearing helmets, double dinking , riding on footpaths, creating a hazard for people around the city," Reece said at the time.

The premier, Jacinta Allen, has previously said she opposes the CBD ban on the scooters and hopes the council will overturn it.

Victoria's e-scooter trial began in February 2022, with 1,500 Lime and Neuron vehicles initially placed across three council areas – Melbourne, Port Phillip and Yarra. In July, the state government announced e-scooter hire schemes would be permanently legal from October.

The City of Melbourne ban will not apply to privately owned e-scooters.