Lime will celebrate the milestone with a safety-themed event downtown in May where it will give out helmets and Lime Kelowna branded swag as well as offer safe riding instructions for folks who haven’t yet tried out a Lime vehicle or ride all the time and just want to improve their technique.
Lime announced that it will hit 1 million total rides in Kelowna this week while parking improvements are keeping streets tidier than ever, demonstrating the continued strong demand for micromobility and the program’s improvements over time.
Lime will celebrate the milestone with a safety-themed event downtown in May where it will give out helmets and Lime Kelowna branded swag as well as offer safe riding instructions for folks who haven’t yet tried out a Lime vehicle or ride all the time and just want to improve their technique. Lime will also provide discount codes to all riders who pass a safety quiz.
“All of us at Lime are blown away by the ridership we’ve seen throughout our time in Kelowna and we are grateful to our riders and to the city for allowing us to provide safe, affordable, and sustainable transit options in the form of e-bikes and e-scooters. Hitting 1 million rides at the very start of our fourth year of this program is a testament to Kelowna’s love for two wheeled transit and to the partnership we’ve built with the city and local leaders to support the demand for this program and work to ensure it has always improved over time. This year we’ve focused especially on safe riding and proper parking and we’re proud to say that complaints have already decreased significantly even while ridership continues to boom. We look forward to continuing to serve Kelowna and contribute to its transportation network in a safe, affordable, and sustainable way,” said Sonia Kandola, Director of Government Relations.
Throughout its time in Kelowna, Lime has focused on safe riding and proper parking, taking into account feedback provided by riders, community leaders, elected officials, and the city’s transportation planners. While Lime has been happy to tweak its operations to improve the micromobility experience since launching in 2021, this year it doubled down on entirely new parking plans downtown which have already decreased complaints and incidents significantly.
Those improvements included mandatory parking zones in downtown Kelowna which now require riders to leave their vehicles near digital parking pins visible in the Lime app, reducing clutter and keeping streets tidy, as well as dedicated staff time for maintenance and vehicle rebalancing early in the mornings. This spring Lime also launched a new initiative to improve parking all around Kelowna and especially downtown called Lime Parking Wardens. Lime offered incentives to riders for properly parking their e-scooters and e-bikes downtown, a strategy that worked well in cities like London and Melbourne and immediately showed results here in Kelowna.
Kelowna
• Lime ridership in March and April of 2024 is up more than 7% compared to 2023, which was Lime’s best year ever in Kelowna by far
• In 2023 78,000 riders took over 555,000 trips on Lime e-bikes and e-scooters in Kelowna, marking a 190% increase in rides and a 67% increase in riders compared to 2022
• Since Lime launched in April 2021, over 166,000 riders have taken over 1 million rides in Kelowna, travelling nearly 1.97 million kilometres
• Lime riders have kept an estimated 237,000 car trips off the road and by doing so have prevented an estimated 105 metric tons of carbon emissions and saved an estimated 45,000 litres of fuel
Lime’s Global Success Leads to Local Investment
In April Lime announced that in 2023 it had achieved a consecutive record year in gross bookings, Adjusted EBITDA and total rides, building on Lime’s record-setting 2022. The year reflected Lime’s continued leadership in the shared electric vehicle industry and positions it for long-term sustainability. Lime provides shared e-bikes and e-scooters in 280 cities in nearly 30 countries as it continues its mission to decarbonize transportation globally and serve as an alternative to car trips. Lime’s global success allows it to invest in its local programs like here in Kelowna, which includes investments in hardware, warehouse space, jobs, and community partnerships. Lime’s global experience also allows it to bring strategies from around the world to local markets like Kelowna, which when paired with Lime’s hyperlocal focus and ability to tailor strategies to the needs of individual cities, yields strong results for riders and non-riders alike.
Lime Global 2023 Highlights Include:
• Gross Bookings record of $616 million, a 32% increase over 2022
• Full-year positive EBITDA, and Adjusted EBITDA in excess of $90 million, a more-than 500% increase over 2022
• Completed a record 156 million trips in 2023 (about 5 trips every second for the entire year), while surpassing 500 million lifetime trips
• More than 42 cities saw trips double year over year
• 9.2 million new riders took their first Lime ride in 2023,
• Over 3.1 million monthly riders active on average, with a peak surpassing 4.3 million in July