Less than a week after launching, Bird Canada has suspended its e-scooter pilot project in Windsor.
That's according to Mayor Drew Dilkens who told AM800's The Morning Drive that the company was forced to suspend operations Tuesday because 10 per cent of the scooters have been stolen.
Bird Canada launched the project with 150 scooters on Saturday with a plan to make 500 scooters available in the coming weeks.
Dilkens says that he's disheartened and frustrated over what happened and that the city could be at risk of losing the program but will work with Bird to try to make it a success.
"We could be in jeopardy of losing this, if this continues to happen," he says. “We’re going to work with Bird on security issues and safety issues and make sure we get this rolled out effectively in our community so we can have a reasonable one year trial period, then evaluate going from there," he says.
Stewart Lyons, CEO of Bird Canada says when the program launched in Edmonton they dealt with similar issues but the rate of thefts in Windsor was shocking.
"The issue is though, I think it happened a little bit more quickly and a little more aggressively than we were expecting in Windsor," says Lyons. "So what we do about that, we'll have to adjust a bit. We spent most of yesterday getting the scooters back that people had mistakenly taken I'll call it, to be generous."
Lyons says there is always going to be bad actors no matter what city they launch in.
"It's the reality of life, there's always going to be some bad actors. Certainly the business plan of this business obviously accounts for that” he says.
Lyons wants people to know that the scooters are no use to you if you steal one.
"They cannot be turned into a personal scooter. If you take it apart they just fall apart, everything seizes up, the motor seizes up and the brain in there prevents it from becoming a personal scooter. Many have tried all but failed, there's no use" he says.
Pricing for the e-scooters starts at $1.50 and costs 35 cents per minute for the duration of the ride.
A mobile app is used to register, locate and pay for a scooter, which can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play.