In a town where public transport options are limited to certain times and specific routes, some say the addition of Beam’s electric scooters are enough to fill the public transport gaps and provide someone with a destination a simple means to travel there and back.
Others, like Esperance resident Ry Stewart, have said while electric scooters had their place, Esperance would benefit from a reliable ride-hailing service especially for airport trips.
“It does make a difference for people who are drinking and out later and want to get home in a more fun way,” he said about the e scooters.
“But there are a lot of people that got injured.”
Ry Stewart is a marketing expert who said he was curious to know what people thought about Esperance’s current transport options and turned to the a community Facebook page to pose the question:
“Who in Esperance thinks that they would benefit from having another on-call transport service and why?”
“People are definitely interested, and a lot of people wanted it,” Mr Stewart said.
According to the responses from his post, the Esperance community is keen on ride-share options like Uber or something similar that they proposed could be funded by the Shire of Esperance.
“There should be a shuttle bus for the airport, and yes, the taxi here has always been slow, we need Uber or someone to drive people where they need to go,” one responder said.
“Taxis you got to wait hours, I’ve picked up mates from the pub, because they waited too long for taxis.”
Mr Stewart, who had previously worked in the transport sector, said he briefly researched Uber’s procedures and commission rates, and his educated guess determined the service would not be viable in Esperance.
“It would be flat out, it would be pretty much non-stop,” he said.
“Trying to get more than a little money would be hard. Maybe in peak periods it would make sense but outside of that it would take a great amount of people in town to make it viable.”
Having read and responded to most of the comments on his Facebook post, Mr Stewart said he thought a Shire funded airport shuttle would be of value to Esperance.
When asked about where the Shire of Esperance stood in the matter, Shire president Ron Chambers said public transport was not a Shire responsibility, but they were able to assist and support projects initiated by others
“We worked with the Department of Transport to implement the bus service,” Mr Chambers said.
“Our role is about support and regulation of those who implement the systems. It comes down to roles and responsibility, but we can assist if someone wants to set something up.”
Another potential solution Mr Stewart said he took away from the response to his post was the opportunity for retirees or other locals with spare time to make a little money by offering their services.
With comments unanimously in favour of an on-call transport option, the new question is whether the demand is to an extent that a service would be initiated.
