Lime is using artificial intelligence to get scooter riders off San Francisco sidewalks. The company's Lime Vision system uses cameras mounted on its scooters to detect when a rider is on the sidewalk. It then keeps alerting the rider until they move back to the street or end the trip, KRON4 reported.
About 30% of Lime's San Francisco scooters have the cameras now, and the company expects its whole fleet to have them by next year.
Why now
Riders are supposed to use streets or bike lanes, not sidewalks. According to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, there were 210 severe injuries involving e-bikes and e-scooters last year and 116 in just the first six months of this year. Reports of sidewalk riding to 311 have also surged since 2024, KRON4 reported.
Residents told the station about close calls. One woman said a man on an electric scooter slammed into her while she was walking her two dogs, leaving her arm bruised and swollen for a week. "He just waved and said sorry and kept going," she said.
What the city says
Supervisor Danny Sauter said he is encouraged by the technology and hopes other companies follow. "The city of San Francisco has partnerships with Lime, Scoot and Lyft for the bikes. We need them all to work together on this," he said. He also called for more protected bike lanes and more bike and scooter parking so sidewalks aren't cluttered.
Personally owned e-bikes and scooters are harder for the city to regulate. Sauter asks residents to report sidewalk riding through the city's 311 app, with a photo if possible.
Years in the making
Lime first announced its own camera-based sidewalk detection platform in 2022 and planned to pilot it on close to 400 scooters in San Francisco and Chicago, TechCrunch reported at the time. The system can both warn riders and slow the scooter down, but each city decides which of those functions to use.