Afraid of e-scooters? Dott launches takeover at Lloyds Amphitheatre to show Bristol how it’s done
New Dott e-scooters and e-bike for hire on the streets of Bristol and Bath as the firm announces a major upgrade, March 2026(Image: Dott)
They have been a presence on our roads and pavements for almost six years now, but as the summer gets underway, the firm running the hire scheme of e-scooters and e-bikes in the West of England is launching a new campaign to get more people to use them.
Even though the e-scooter trial in Bristol is already said to be the one of the largest in Europe, the firm behind the scheme has introduced new special offers and is holding an open day event where people who have never ridden one before can have a go.
The campaign has been backed by metro mayor Helen Godwin, who has got behind the scheme overall, expanded it to new areas and invested in creating scores more designated parking areas in the past year or so.
Already this year, the expansion of the e-scooter scheme into places outside of Bristol like Yate and Thornbury has been extended until September, and new parking areas which are painted into spaces on the roads where there would normally be on-street car parking has finally begun to happen in parts of Bristol.
People tend to ride the e-scooters and e-bikes with longer days and better weather in the summer, so the French micromobility firm Dott, which runs the scooter scheme in Bristol and Bath has launched a campaign to get more riders on board during May.
The new deals
The month began with the launch of a special pass, called the ‘WEST SummerPass’, which will see riders pay £2.99 a month, and get unlimited 20-minute rides for just £2.50.
Normally, rides cost £1 to unlock the scooter or e-bike, and then 25p a minute, so the rider would be saving money on a regular ride cost after just seven minutes, and would save the £2.99 spent on the pass in the first place, after just one 20-minute ride.
Dott is also introducing a special discount for people riding e-scooters on Sundays. For the rest of the summer, the £1 unlock fee is being scrapped on a Sunday.
READ MORE: New £5m e-bikes and e-scooters mean colour change again for Bristol and Bath
Then, on the last weekend of May, Dott is taking over the Lloyds Amphitheatre on the harbourside on Sunday May 31, for a free public ‘Sunday Funday’ event which will ‘celebrate the rollout of its new fleet of e-bikes and e-scooters.
The event will run from 10am to 4.30pm and give people the chance to try out the new vehicles for free in a ‘safe, supervised and beginner-friendly environment’. “It will feature guided first-time rider sessions, interactive challenges, giveaways and family-friendly activities throughout the day,” said a spokesperson.
The metro mayor
The e-scooter hire scheme was first introduced in Bristol way back in the middle of the Covid pandemic in October 2020, with the region’s first metro mayor Tim Bowles being the first elected politician to be asked to ride one for the cameras.
It’s a national scheme, a Government trial which has supposed to be in place to see whether electric scooters can be introduced onto British roads in a safe way.
West of England Mayor Tim Bowles (left) with Alex Klimt of Voi Technology launch e-scooter trials in Bristol and Bath(Image: WECA)
The trial keeps being extended, with the Department for Transport continuing to assess the safety and impact of e-scooters, while continuing to assert that privately-owned e-scooters are still illegal to ride on public roads and spaces.
Like metro mayors before her, Helen Godwin has had to balance the large numbers of people who use the trial and ride the scooters with the concerns of other road users and residents – mainly about parking.
In a region without a mass transit system, previous e-scooter scheme operators have said Bristol is largely unique across Europe because people mostly use them to commute, rather than for short journeys around cities during the day.
This presents a logistical challenge for the scheme operator, and there continues to be large areas outside the city centre with no scooters or bikes available during the day, while hundreds are parked unused all day in the city centre.
Rows of neatly-lined up e-scooters from hire firm Dott, on the pavement at the junction of Wine Street and High Street in Bristol city centre, April 2026(Image: Bristol Post)
But Bristol continues to be the place where e-scooters are hired the most out of anywhere in Europe – and that’s why the city was the first to get Dott’s next generation of striking blue scooters and bikes.
Sorting out the parking issues has been Helen Godwin’s first priority, while continuing to back the scheme.
Over the winter just gone, local councils, funded by WECA, have been busy painting marked parking bays for the vehicles – with metro mayor Helen Godwin saying that she and the police have been cracking down on people leaving their scooters and bikes outside the designated parking areas – with more than 16,000 fines issued in just the five months from September to January.
READ MORE: ‘I know e-scooters are divisive’ says Metro Mayor as major expansion continues
But at the same time, there have been 52 new marked parking bays have been installed across the West of England — a 260% increase – with more to come.
Helen Godwin’s WECA team say it’s working – with reports of abandoned or wrongly parked bikes and scooters down by half this year so far.
“Over 99 per cent of Dott journeys now end in a proper parking place – a real improvement on previous years – thanks to the Scoot Safe campaign launched by the Police & Crime Commissioner and I, and regional funding for local councils to install more marked bays,” said Helen Godwin.
West of England Metro Mayor Helen Godwin on a Tier/Dott e-scooter at Lyde Green, June 2025(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
“More people have more travel choices to get around the West as a result of the expanded trial, including in South Gloucestershire and the south of Bath. I want to once again thank everyone who is doing the right thing on our roads, however they travel.
“We have already made progress in striking a better balance through our Scoot Safe campaign, tackling valid concerns about e-bike and e-scooter parking and riding. The fines that we have introduced are making a real difference and have made our streets tidier, which is particularly good news for disabled people,” she added.
The new deals on making it cheaper to use the bikes and scooters have also been backed by the metro mayor.
READ MORE: E-scooter hire scheme expanding to ‘new areas’ in South Gloucestershire
“The WEST Summer Pass and Sunday offers will help people using e-bikes and e-scooters to get around more easily, following on from the huge investment by the operator in a new fleet of state-of-the-art vehicles,” Helen Godwin said.
“Like our regional £1 child bus fares freeze until 2029, Dott’s initiatives can help make sustainable and public transport more affordable. The new offers announced, alongside existing discounts for NHS workers, will continue to help us strike a better balance during this trial,” she added.
Iqbal Ahmed is the head of public policy & business development for Dott in the UK and Ireland. He said the idea of summer deals on fares and the funday event is to encourage more people to think about riding the scooters and bikes.
(Image: Dott)
“Sunday Funday is about giving people a fun, welcoming and safe opportunity to experience the new Dott fleet for themselves,” he said.
“With Free Unlock Sundays now available across the region, we’re also helping make sustainable travel more affordable at a time when many people are looking for flexible and lower-cost ways to get around,” he added.
“We are focused on providing a sustainable, high-quality, and reliable service that also remains affordable for our riders.
“Launching the WEST SummerPass and the free Sunday unlocks, especially given the current economic climate, complements our recent deployment of 4,000 brand new vehicles, ensuring that the best ride yet is also the most accessible ride for all users in the West of England,” he said.