Ban on e-bikes on trains a response over the top, cycling advocates say
A plan to ban e-bikes and e-scooters from trains has been branded a knee-jerk overreaction that will limit Victorians’ mobility and access to public transport.
The Department of Transport and Planning last month released draft regulations to ban electric bikes and scooters from passenger trains and V/Line coaches in response to the risk of lithium-ion battery fires.
Narelle Beurle, from the Ladies Back on Your Bike group, says the ban on e-bikes on trains is an overreaction. Credit: Joe Armao
An e-bike caught fire on a Metro train at Union station, in Melbourne’s east, in March and hundreds of house fires have been blamed on malfunctioning e-bike and e-scooter batteries.
London banned e-bikes from trains in March, except for foldable models, “until improved product safety measures are in place for converted cycles, batteries and chargers”.
But critics say Victoria’s blanket ban, which is set to start on September 30, is disproportionate to the unlikely event of a fire.
Narelle Beurle, who runs the cycling club Ladies Back On Your Bike, which has close to 180 members and organises group rides for women of all ages and cycling abilities, feared the ban would deter people from cycling.
An e-bike caught fire on a Melbourne train in March.
About 20 per cent of the group’s members use electric pedal-assist bicycles and many begin or end their rides with a train journey either around Melbourne or to regional Victoria on V/Line.
“A lot of our ladies have purchased e-bikes to enable them to keep getting on the rides and keeping that social connection with people,” said Beurle, who is currently using an e-bike because a back injury makes it too difficult to use a regular bicycle.
“We’ve got members who are in their 70s and 80s, and so without access to an e-bike they’ll probably drop off and not continue to ride.”
Beurle said members of her group had bought reputable e-bike brands, which often cost thousands of dollars and met European safety standards, whereas the string of house fires on record involved bikes with DIY conversion kits or low-quality imports, including those used in the food delivery industry.
“So just to have a blanket ban, I think it’s a knee-jerk reaction,” Beurle said.
Hussein Dia, a professor of future urban mobility at Swinburne University, said many commuters used e-scooters to get to and from train stations, which closed gaps in the public transport network.
“If you think about the outer suburbs, where the bus comes around every 30 minutes, they can be a really helpful solution,” he said of the scooters. “If they’re not available, they’ll use their polluting vehicles.”
Dia said a lithium battery fire on a train was a serious but unlikely event, and should be managed by enforcing quality standards on imported batteries and devices.
Elliot Fishman, a director at consultancy firm Institute for Sensible Transport, said everyone was paying the price for the state and federal governments allowing the e-bike market to become a “wild west”, with no quality control on imports or police enforcement against riders using illegal high-powered models.
Fishman said the state government had not collected enough data on how many people take e-bikes and e-scooters on trains to understand what the likelihood of a fire actually was, nor what impact the ban would have on Victorians’ mobility.
“There is a public consultation process [where] the answer is already known and they’re merely going through the process, but not in a genuine way,” he said.
Public consultation on the ban closes on August 18, just six weeks before it is set to come into effect.
A summary paper on the new regulations says a train fire is “a serious safety issue because it may be difficult to evacuate passengers on a crowded service or where trains are in between stations”.
“Electrical fires from these devices can start without warning, are extremely difficult to extinguish and quickly spread toxic smoke,” the paper says.
Bicycle industry bodies say poor quality and dangerous e-bikes flooded into Australia in 2021 after the Morrison government revoked a permit system that forced importers to prove their e-bikes met world-leading European safety standards, did not exceed speeds of 25km/h and didn’t have a battery more powerful than 250 watts.
Victoria and NSW last month asked the federal government to reintroduce national safety standards for electronic mobility devices, including rules around speed capability and battery safety.
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