Photo: RNZ
A popular e-scooter company will have to deactivate all its scooters in Auckland after its license was cancelled by Auckland Council for a serious compliance breach, which will be referred to police.
Beam has been ordered to deactivate its scooters by 11.59pm on Tuesday, after information given to the council indicated Beam had been deploying numbers of e-scooters above the permitted limit and providing misleading data to conceal it from monitoring reports.
Auckland Council allowed Beam to have up to 1400 scooters across Auckland, but found that was being exceeded by almost 40 percent.
"Limits on e-scooter numbers are in place for the safety of other road and footpath users and to minimise nuisance in and around our city," the council's manage of licensing and environmental health Mervyn Chetty said.
"It appears that Beam found a way to sidestep these requirements, which is very disappointing and has resulted in a loss of trust and confidence in the operator."
The license was cancelled effective immediately, Chetty said, and Beam has been asked to deactivate all scooters one minute before midnight, with all the devices removed from Auckland streets by 5pm on Friday.
The council had been provided with evidence of anomalies between the reported and actual number of e-scooters operating in Auckland and other Australiasian cities by a concerned person at the beginning of August.
"The evidence suggests that these anomalies were intentional, with Beam providing misleading data to Ride Report to appear compliant with cap limits," Chetty said.
"The council has since undertaken its own investigation including requesting further analysis by Ride Report, with resulting data received on 18 August consistent with the allegations and the council's own findings."
Ride report indicated between 26 July 2023 and 15 August this year, Beam consistently exceeded their device allowance by almost 40 percent.
"We have not taken the decision to cancel Beam's licence lightly, however, once we had reason to believe there were clear breaches of the licence conditions, we were able to quickly verify the scale and seriousness of the changes to the data," Chetty said.
There would be a drop in the number of e-scooters in Auckland following the removal, Chetty said, and the council was exploring options to mitigate the shortfall.
Beam said the cancellation was disappointing and it had apologised to the council.
It was working to appoint an independent auditor to examine the breach.
The council confirmed the matter would be referred to police.