KUCHING: Streaks of purple are getting more and more conspicuous in the city streets of late as happy-go-lucky teens, commuting executives, and even trendy pensioners zip around from place to place on e-scooters painted with King of Pop Michael Jackson’s favourite colour.
Gleefully they glide around the city, barely breaking sweat as they overtake cyclists on stiff climbs. They also descend with ease, hair fluttering in the wind, gravity and electric engines working in tandem to get them to their destinations at amazing speeds.
If you have been observant, you might have seen them along bicycle lanes, main roads and even on walkways. Perhaps you even have close shaves where they almost bump into you.
It may be surprising to some people when they come to realise that these e-scooters now seem to be almost ubiquitous. Petra Jaya, Kuching Waterfront, Saradise in Stampin, Kenyalang Park, Tabuan Jaya, and Batu Kawah appear to be the favourite places among the enthusiasts of these Beam e-scooters.
From an economic perspective, these tiny devices manifest a clear need for inexpensive, speedy and reliable mode of transportation.
It gives city folk an easy and fast way to cover short distances, normally between 400 metres and two kilometres, which is too far to walk but too short for a taxi or car or bus ride.
For decades, due to various problems affecting public transportation, people in this city have long preferred private cars and motorcycles. First and last-mile connectivity continues to be a long-standing issue for the public transportation sector.
In the process of gathering information for this report, I rode one of the e-scooters along Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman yesterday.
To start, all you need to do is download the Beam app, locate a scooter nearest to you and pay RM1 to unlock it. It costs 60 sen per minute to use the machine.
Initially it felt fairly heavy, so it took me a minute to get the hang of it. To start the motor, you place one foot on the footpad with the other on the ground, then give it a push forward (twice is sufficient) while pressing the start button.
As I gathered speed, I looked from side to side and as quietly as I could, muttered: “Vroom, vroom, vroom!” And away I went. It was definitely fun.
Gliding along the street, I quickly realised that what I was doing had insignificant impact on the public transport system. Nor did I contribute much to traffic congestion as I and the scooter took up a very small space.
Along the much busier Carpenter Street, I did feel small and vulnerable among the cars and trucks, but when the traffic bunched up and stopped, I was so glad that I could pass through easily.
I passed a few young men on similar e-scooters along the pavement. One of them did not appreciate being overtaken by me at 10 km/h and so he rode nimbly off the kerb onto the road at about double my speed. I wish I was that skilful and confident.
I can’t predict the future, but I think this is a precursor of what could be urban mode of travel in the next few years. After a brief experience on the tiny machine, I’m already a fan.
“They’re incredibly easy to use,” said Mario James, a 26-year-old Sony photographer, who lives in Three Hills Park, which is a hilly area.
“You just push off and hold the ‘GO’ button and away you go. I’m not super-fit, so cycling is difficult. But on an e-scooter I can go up a hill really easily.”
Mario uses the Beam e-scooter on journeys that he previously undertook by car.
“I’m going out to take some pictures of Kuching Waterfront this afternoon, then meet a friend on the other side of the city near the floating mosque. I might have gotten a Grab car both ways before, but this time I’ll take the scooter,” he said.
His friend, Raziq Osman, 26, a studio photographer, goes to meetings that require him to go from Padungan to India Street. He used to cycle, which was tiring, and it made him sweaty on arrival.
Jalan Mathie, Jalan Bukit Mata and Jalan Borneo are on the steepest hills in the area. They offer spectacular views of the city and the Sarawak River, but they do test the thighs of even the fittest cyclists.
“Even so, and surprisingly, the scooter doesn’t lose power going up the hills,” he said.
In his opinion, the Beam e-scooter which he has been riding along the regular roads and cycle paths is a game changer.
“That’s why I have stopped taking GrabCar or Maxim. I can go anywhere within the legal zones. It saves me time and money; it is a tremendous amount of fun,” he said.
Sometimes he rides to a supermarket, and he often bring along one of his three brothers aged eight to 10. The scooter remains stable even with two persons on board.
He said, “It’s a nice way of moving around here. It also convinces them not to use cars all the time, except when it’s raining.”
Three girls — Neeza Fasella, 31; Aziah Fasella, 29; and Nizah Fasella, 7, from Miri — joined us during the ride from Plaza Merdeka through the nearby parking dock. None of them wore a helmet. Actually, none of us did. Helmets are recommended but not compulsory.
“Even just over 14 km/h feels naughtily fast,” noted Neeza, who said that they used the e-scooter to explore the sights around Kuching. She seemed interested in the specifications, range, and speed of the machine, while her sister Aziah showed me on her phone the comparison between two brands, Beam and Xiaomi.
“Beam e-scooter has a maximum continuous power rating of 350W. The Xiaomi’s is around 300W and a fully charged battery can propel you up to a maximum speed of 25 km/h. Battery cap limit is estimated at 20 km between charges, which is three or four times faster than the average walking speed,” explained Neeza, who is an electrical engineering graduate.
An American tourist couple named Donovan and Shauna, when approached at a docking station near Sarawak Plaza, said that e-scooters, when used responsibly, are no more dangerous than bicycles and have broader appeal. Not everyone can ride a bike, such as people with mobility issues.
“Anyone can ride a scooter, which is more democratic than riding a bicycle.”
Democracy on wheels may be, but he got shouted at by taxi drivers and was told that he should not be on the road. Donovan, who didn’t want his surname used, has taken more than ten trips so far on an e-scooter.
“Maybe they shouted at early cyclists, back in the day,” he jested.
These are arguably the great promise of the Beam e- scooters. The legality issue, however, seems to be a touchy one.
A local councilor thinks there should be an official conversation between the Beam people and state government if there is strong uptake in public response to the product.
“I am absolutely shocked to see riders going along the walkways, whizzing around, going the wrong way, and scooters are parked all over the city centre.
“How this matter will be policed is not yet clear … because e-scooters are encouraged in the ‘contested space’ within our jurisdiction. I’m all for e-scooters as long as they are legal,” he said.
From his perspective, ‘contested space’ is understandable. Already, walkaways which sometimes double as cycling paths are often obstructed by parked motorcycles or errant hawkers who extend their area of business with tables and chairs for their customers.
A check with the Ministry of Transport reveal that e-scooters are banned from public roads, but allowed in areas where there is no mixture of traffic involving various vehicles. The ban was gazetted under the Road Traffic (Prohibition of Use of Certain Micro Mobility Rules Vehicles) Rules 2021 on Dec 17, 2021 and had been in effect since.
Even then, there is a caveat in the ban that permits micromobility vehicles on public roads, provided that local authorities make available the required infrastructure and facilities, such as dedicated bicycle lanes and smooth pavements, to ensure safe usage.
The Beam e-scooter uses advanced technology to adhere to local laws, including automatic speed control, geofencing and using individual QR codes to track riders.
Citing existing data, the micromobility company, which started in 2016, has had an accident rate of 0.007 per cent, or one out of every 10,000 rides. In other words, such incidents rarely happen.
Beam Mobility places strong emphasis on safety, investment in technology to monitor operations and nipping reckless behaviour in the bud, and investment in education for not only riders, but the broader community; for example, areas with high foot traffic or pedestrian-only streets such as the Kuching Waterfront that the local authority does not want people riding into.
To solve that, Beam Mobility created a no-riding zone in its app that automatically stops its scooters when they enter a prohibited area. This state-of-the-art Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation is called geofencing.
“The company has many different types of geofences to cater to different use cases, such as general operating zones, speed-limited zones, and no-parking zones. Many of the cities I have visited operate in a good mixture of all of them.”
When asked how complex it could get, he began by speaking about being in an imaginary city with just an operating and non-operating zone.
“Before launch, we need to have deeper insights into how some areas of the city perform. So we create multiple operating geofences.
“After a couple of weeks, we realise that vehicles parked near a river have a higher probability of being thrown into the water. Thus, all areas near rivers are no-parking zones,” he said.
“I’m not sure about Beam Mobility (Malaysia) but in Australia, they deploy Micromobility Augmented Riding Safety (MARS) feature, which includes computer vision abilities to detect pedestrians and slow down the vehicles. It also includes sensor-based technology to detect if a user is riding drunk, with multiple passengers or swerving aggressively,” said Donovan, who worked with a transportation firm in Brisbane, Australia a few years ago.
Beam Mobility did not immediately respond to the New Sarawak Tribune request for comments.
“There’s a strict internal policy that all press related matters have to go through the PR team. I can’t speak on behalf of the company on this matter, as much as I’d like to help,” wrote Beam’s local associate.
On Saturday (Dec 31, 2022), Beam Mobility Malaysia announced on its Facebook page that it was officially operating in Kuching, Sarawak. Based in Singapore, it operates in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, Thailand and Malaysia.
