Forget bike sharing—electric scooters are the way to go now

We’ve come a long way from dealing with the first world problem of walking short distances. No longer do we have to own our own bikes to get from the train station to our homes. But of course, with that, some of us have resorted to even more convenient means of traveling (read: personal mobility devices like electric scooters), which has opened up a new market. While it’s not new, it seems like electric scooters are the new bicycles. And with it, comes a new contender vying for a slice of that pie in the market.

Gogreen Holdings has launched its pilot dockless scooter sharing initiative—a first for Singapore—at One Fullerton over the weekend (May 19). Jackie Chan, who’s also one of the company’s shareholders, was present for the proceedings. It joins companies like Telepod, Neuron Mobility, PopScoot, GoScoot and many others in providing a scooter sharing service here.

The fleet of Ninebot by Segway KickScooters (ES2), according to the company, meets the criteria for Personal Mobility Devices set by the Active Mobility Advisory Panel from the Land Transport Authority, and is fairly easy to operate. It’ll allow a fun, cheap, convenient and environmentally friendly way to explore the city or to get from one point to another. 

They’ve got a pretty good track record too—10 years of e-mobility based attraction management experience with less than 0.005% incidents to date. Also, they’ve been the exclusive distributor of various Segway Products in Singapore for the past decade.

This initiative is just the first phase of a larger scooter program, which is due to launch later in the third quarter. At the moment, you’ll probably find one of these Ninebots around touristy places like the Marina Bay Sands area, parked at random spots since it is afterall, dockless. But if you’re living in the east, specifically Pasir Ris, they’ve launched the world’s first Segway vending machine over at Downtown East; not for rental but for purchase. Rentals (and other purchases) are available at GoGreen’s flagship store, in case you’re in the mood to explore the nearby Pasir Ris Park and its surroundings.

More info here.