The City of Darwin wants e-scooters to be ridden in bike paths and on roads, instead of on footpaths, as the council looks to ensure the devices play a key part in Darwin's transport scene into the future.

The council has asked providers to put forward proposals to operate e-scooters in Darwin for the next two years, following a series of three- and six-month rolling trials, operated by Neuron, that began in 2020.

City of Darwin innovation general manager Alice Percy said since the trial began, technology had changed dramatically, and the council would be reviewing the safety and enforcement features available, to ultimately improve e-scooter safety and experiences throughout Darwin.

"There's so many new innovations that we're looking forward to reviewing in the proposals," she said.

Ms Percy said some providers now had in-app features that were able to check if riders had been drinking.

She said some scooters also had technology to detect if pedestrians were nearby and could reduce their speed accordingly, plus there were smaller scooters also available that would stop two people from sharing one.

As part of the changes, Ms Percy said the council wanted to improve infrastructure, including adding more bike lines, electric charging stations and e-scooter parking spots across the city to make it easier for people to use e-scooters to commute.

"Other capital cities are allowing scooters on the roads, and not on footpaths, so it's safer for pedestrians," she said.

Calls for pedestrian safety to be protected

Charlies Darwin University law lecturer Mark Brady said the use of e-scooters was "inherently good" but more needed to be done to ensure pedestrians, including children and the elderly, were safe using footpaths.

He said moving scooters from footpaths to bike paths was a possible solution.

"They need to be either controlled internally through their own mechanisms to slow them down in certain situations, or they'll need some form of legislative control or separation between those devices and the general public," Mr Brady said.

"The way they've amended the legislation in 2021 now puts micro-mobility devices … on the footpath as pedestrians which in itself is a recipe for disaster," he said.

A study looking at the impact of e-scooters on Top End hospitals found between January and September 2021, 111 people presented to emergency departments.

The study found about half of the injured riders were intoxicated, with average blood alcohol content of 0.18 per cent, despite it being illegal to ride an e-scooter drunk.

NT Police said in the three-and-a-half years e-scooters had been operating in Darwin, no infringements had been issued.

Council embraces environmental benefits of scooters

Despite the hospital survey results and a series of bad crashes in the CBD captured on CCTV, e-scooters remain a key part of the council's movement strategy, as it looks to reduce carbon emissions and the number of cars on roads.

To address this, the council hoped the NT government would allow personal e-scooters to be allowed in public places too, something that currently was not permitted.

Ms Percy also hoped that scooters could be used across more Darwin suburbs including Parap, Nightcliff and Stuart Park to further reduce the number of cars on the road.

"Since 2020, we've had 3.5 million kilometres of scooter movement across the municipality, we've reduced carbon emissions by 125 tonnes per annum," Ms Percy said.

"We've got an aim by 2040 to be zero carbon emissions."