The Miami Riders Alliance, on behalf of the city’s seven shared electric scooter operators, announced the scooter program has recorded over 1.2 million rides in 2021 and is on track to beat the previous ridership record of 1.3 million rides set in 2019 before the end of November.
For the last three years, Miami has hosted seven scooter operators in its Scooter Pilot Program, with 2,300-plus scooters and more than 100 designated parking corrals in City District 2. The program to date has had a considerable economic impact on the city: scooter operators have created 150 local jobs, paid $6.8 million in local wages, and signed six long term real estate leases throughout Miami-Dade. Most notably, however, the pilot program has generated over $3 million in city revenue, which has helped fund new protected bike lanes in downtown Miami.
Like other large and innovative cities with shared micromobility programs worldwide, Miami has seen scooter ridership soar coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and seen residents and visitors replace car trips with scooter rides. According to Lyft’s 2020 Miami Multimodal Report, one in four riders in Miami have used scooters to get to or from work, and one in three have used them to run errands, demonstrating that local residents, and not just tourists, are using the program. The study also found that 37% of Miami scooter riders do not own or lease a personal vehicle and are fully dependent on public transportation modes. The pilot program has also helped improve jobs access for Miami residents — access to shared scooters increased the number of jobs accessible through transit or walking by 40%, from 281,000 jobs to 394,000 jobs.
Record ridership comes at a time when Miami’s scooter program prepares to move from “Pilot” to “Permanent.” Earlier this month the City of Miami received more than 10 responses to the Request for Proposal for Shared Motorized Scooter Services, from which they will select up to three scooter operators to deliver a permanent program for the next five years. The selection is expected to be finalized within the next few months.
