AUSTIN (KXAN) — As festivalgoers gear up for the 2024 Austin City Limits Music Festival, electric scooter and e-bike company Lime will also be deploying more staff and resources to meet the demand.
Lime announced Thursday that attendees will "strategically deploy and rebalance [their] fleet of e-scooters and e-bikes" during the festival. Lime staff will also set up a tent along Toomey Road where they'll pass out free helmets and be available to share safety and parking information with attendees.
The ACL Music Festival is one of Austin's annual events that attract higher volumes of e-scooter and e-bike users around town. During events like ACL and the South by Southwest Conference & Festivals, Lime ridership has climbed up to 200%, per the release.
KXAN reviewed city data from 2019 to 2023 (excluding 2020, when the festival was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic) on how many e-scooter trips were taken in Austin on past years' ACL festival dates. That dataset incorporated reporting from all operational micromobility partners in Austin at that time, with the breakdown noted below.
Weekend 1: Oct. 6-8
Weekend 2: Oct. 13-15
Weekend 1: Oct. 7-9
Weekend 2: Oct. 14-16
Weekend 1: Oct. 1-3
Weekend 2: Oct. 8-10
Weekend 1: Oct. 4-6
Weekend 2: Oct. 11-13
Lime foot patrol staff will help reposition improperly parked micromobility devices as well as operate a fleet of electric vans that will be "running nonstop in order to ensure all of its operations are as sustainable as possible."
“As Austin’s shared e-scooter provider of choice, we know how important it is to prepare for big events like Austin City Limits. We’ve handled this event and others like it including SXSW every year and we try to get better at keeping things safe and orderly every year," Lime's senior operations manager Chris Betterton said in the release. "Our colleagues in Paris learned a lot this summer about serving a city during the Olympics and we’re taking lessons from them too. We look forward to keeping Austin riding green, riding safely, and parking properly during the festival."
Lime along with Bird are the two shared-mobility provider companies currently operating in Austin, per the city's shared mobility documents. An Austin Transportation and Public Works spokesperson said the city will permit scooter providers to "increase the e-scooter/e-bike fleets as needs and as much as can be handled by their operations."
City officials will evaluate those micromobility operations on a day-to-day basis and tweak allocations, if necessary.
