Key Takeaways:
- More than 200,000 unique riders rode Bird e-scooters across Ottawa and Windsor in Ontario, Kelowna in British Columbia, or Calgary, Edmonton, Okotoks, Red Deer, and St. Albert in Alberta this year, according to Bird Canada.
Bird riders saved approximately 147,000 liters of gas and avoided an estimated 800 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions based on a combined distance traveled of more than 2.9 million kilometers.
“The significant rise in the number of trips taken, as well as the increase in the average distance traveled, confirms that Canadians are increasingly adopting e-scooters as a micro-mobility solution,” said Stewart Lyons, CEO of Bird Canada. “Given the prompt environmental or economic impact of e-scooters, we anticipate that many more cities across the country will investigate e-scooter pilot programs in the future.”
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This year, e-scooters were a chose mode of transportation for many, from getting groceries to scooting to a business meeting across town, with an average e-scooter trip of 2.8km in 2021, an rise over the 2020 average of 2km.
Riders in Windsor had the most extended average trip length of 4.3km. Still, Calgary had the longest single journey of 58km, followed by 43km in Windsor, 39km in Edmonton, 31km in Okotoks, 28km in Red Deer, 27km in Kelowna and 15km in St. Albert.
The Canadian city with the longest-running e-scooter pilot program, Calgary abode the top spot for the number of trips taken, representing a 187 percent increase over 2020. In addition, there were 244,467 trips in Ottawa (up 52% from 2020) and 212,386 visits in Edmonton (a 78 percent year-over-year increase).
Windsor riders took 137,298 trips and traveled more than 500,000 kilometers in the first year of its e-scooter pilot (564,866).
Based on a recent Emory University study on the economic impact of micro-mobility on local businesses, Bird Canada estimates that e-scooter riders generated $19.8 million in incremental revenue for companies across the seven Canadian cities where it operated this year, the 2021 scooting season.
In 2021, Bird Canada distributed 1,900 free helmets at safety events, festivals, and community initiatives in which it was involved.
Source: BusinessWire
