Bird e-scooters are expected to return to the streets of Okotoks in March.

They were introduced last year via a successful pilot program, and though it'll be mostly similar this year, there will be some key changes.

Transit specialist David Gardner says the town will be receiving data on scooter usage while the program runs.

"What we are doing this time around is we are engaging a third-party data company that specializes in micro-mobility data, and we are going to arrange a different dashboard that we will have live access to. The data company ingests data from the scooter company, so we're able to have a lot better visibility on things like the battery charge levels of the scooters, where they are in the town, and a lot of other information that will give us a better understanding of how scooters are being used in town."

One of the ways this data will be used is to more evenly distribute the scooters across a wider area.

The number of scooters in town will also increase.

"We're going to allow between 150-200 scooters, so it's potentially double what we had last year, which sounds like a lot, but to put it in context, Red Deer had 1700 scooters last year with a population of about 100,000, roughly. We're still being very conservative with limiting the number of scooters," says Gardner.

Scooters will still be capped at a maximum of 20km/h, though there is currently one "Slow Zone" adjacent to the Sheep River where the top speed is lowered to 15, which can be seen on the Bird app. 

More slow zones may also be added later on.

Safety will be emphasized by Bird and the town during this run, with messaging on the app as well as some in-person events dedicated to safety education.

This second year of e-scooters will act as a second pilot, given the shorter season last year and the unexpected success of the program.

"It will also give us an opportunity to understand better what the success criteria is for an e-scooter program. Then, the intention would be, at the end of the season, we will review our learnings both in terms of further public engagement and also what we've been able to learn from the data, and potentially look at some kind of competitive process thereafter for the longer term. This is pretty much in line with quite a few other similar municipalities, Cochrane, for example, where they've done two-year pilots with their respective providers," says Gardner.

He'd like to remind residents that the success of the program rides largely on the riders.

"We all want this to be a success, but we have to recognize that the pathways are for multiple uses, and when e-scooter operators are doing their best to be respectful of others, it's going to lead to a more successful and more adopted program in the future."

Scooters can be accessed through the "Bird" app on Google Play on Android and the App Store on iOS.