The trial, a partnership between Singapore-based e-scooter company Neuron Mobility, the City of Ballarat, and the state government, saw 250 scooters placed around town in December 2021.

Neuron is cagey about releasing their usage statistics, citing commercial sensitivities, and we can't extrapolate exactly how the scooters are being used - or when.

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Anecdotally, usage appears to be down since winter hit, and it's not clear how many individual users there have been, though the most popular age group is 18 to 24 year olds.

The company did state users have travelled almost 300,000 kilometres in Ballarat alone since the launch, and "reduc(ed) the number of car trips by over 123,000 to date".

According to Neuron, this data was from its recent customer survey.

The company also stated the average trip is about 15 minutes and 2.3 kilometres long, with more than double the amount of trips occurring on weekends compared to weekdays.

The company stated the most common usage time on weekdays was between 4pm and 6pm, suggesting a commute home.

According to the company's data, "70 per cent of all our e-scooter trips in Ballarat result in a purchase at a local business or store and this is helping to boost the local economy" and "16 per cent of trips wouldn't have happened at all if the e-scooters weren't available, meaning local businesses would have missed out on valuable sales", according to its user survey.

The most common destinations were Town Hall, GovHub, the Golden City Hotel on Sturt Street, the Lake View Hotel on Wendouree Parade, and the Lake Wendouree adventure playground.

"The overwhelming majority of people are riding responsibly," the company added in a statement.

City of Ballarat mayor Daniel Moloney said in a statement the e-scooters have been "embraced" by residents and visitors.

"As a completely new mode of transport, they have carved out a niche in the city and are filling a transport gap for a range of residents and visitors with very few concerns being raised," he said in response to questions from The Courier.

"Anecdotally, there seems to have been less scooter use as the weather gets colder, but that is to be expected as less people are out and about over winter in general. We are hopeful that this Ballarat Winter Festival people will take the opportunity to get about using scooters to see all the great winter events we have on offer.

"At the conclusion of the 12-month trial the City of Ballarat will be part of the evaluation of all the data by the State Government Department of Transport.

"At this halfway point we remain very excited by the role that micro-mobility can play in the transport system in Ballarat and this trial aligns with our Ballarat Integrated Transport Action Plan (2020) which seeks to encourage commercial operators to enter the transport market and offer new and convenient transport options for the community.

"The incredibly strong ridership numbers are a powerful indicator of their popularity. People wouldn't ride the scooters if they didn't see value in them, and 300,000km travelled on the devices in Ballarat is an incredibly strong indicator."

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