Beam e-scooters to be taken off Wellington streets while council investigates allegations

By RNZ

The Wellington City Council has temporarily kicked e-scooter company Beam off the city’s streets after allegations it has run a larger fleet of e-scooters than it is allowed to.

Beam’s licence was cancelled in Auckland on Tuesday for the same reason, with the council referring the matter to police.

The Wellington council said a report from platform Ride Report showed Beam had operated on average an extra 100 e-scooters beyond its 500 limit between July 26, 2023, and June 21, 2024, which was a breach of its licence. At one point, it was 185 scooters above its cap.

Its licence is suspended as of midnight on Friday, and the company must remove its e-scooters and e-bikes from the city by 5pm on Sunday.

Beam has been accused of exceeding its limits in multiple cities around Australasia and concealing the extra scooters from third-party monitoring software - in some cases denying councils their cut of revenue-share-per fide deals. Wellington council earlier told the Herald it took a flat 11c per ride from Beam.

The Wellington council’s chief planning officer, Liam Hodgetts, said staff were continuing to work through information from Beam and Ride Report.

The information about the e-scooters was concerning and the council had decided to temporarily suspend Beam’s licence to trade in public, effectively stopping Beam from operating in Wellington City until the council’s investigation was completed and a final decision made, Hodgetts said.

“Wellington City elected members set a cap on the number of e-scooters that could be deployed at any time to ensure a balance between having enough devices to meet demand while reducing the risk to pedestrians of footpath clutter. As such we cannot continue to have Beam operate while we continue our analysis of what has happened,” he said.

The council said Beam must remove its scooters and e-bikes from the city by 5pm on Sunday, September 1.

It said it would not be making further comment until the investigation is completed.

With reporting by Herald staff.