Researcher's data shows how Indianapolis is using scooters. Here's what that tells us.

For the first time, data are giving a close look at the popularity of Bird and Lime scooters in Indianapolis.

They're being used a lot — especially on weekends and on days of special events — but each scooter's time on Indianapolis streets is short.

“These things just don’t last very long,” said Nate Apathy, a doctoral candidate studying health and information technology at IUPUI.

The 29-year-old is poring over a trove of data that Bird and Lime regularly reports to the city. City employees are also digging through the data to learn how people are using scooters and how the city could change rules or improve infrastructure to keep riders safe.

Rules passed in July by the Indianapolis City-County Council require scooter companies to provide detailed information, including a record of trips each individual scooter takes, to the city. The trip records include start/end time, trip distance and start/end location. The companies also provide the city with information about how many scooters they deploy each day.

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Bird and Lime scooters:What you need to know

While Apathy is curious about how scooters may affect public health, he does not yet have enough data to draw conclusions. But there are still interesting insights.

The average life of a scooter on Indianapolis streets is 28 days, Apathy found. They are used on 15 of those days on average.

On a given day, an Indianapolis scooter is used just under four times, he found. Those rides last a little more than 15 minutes and 1 mile on average.

During their time on Indianapolis streets, each scooter sees about 51 rides and 66 miles, he found.

These daily trips stack up: Over the four months of data analyzed, more than 8,400 scooters were taken on more than 554,000 trips for more than 595,000 miles, he found.

And the scooters aren't lonely out there: Apathy found an average of 1,392 scooters are used in Indianapolis each day. This could increase in May, when Spin, a Ford-owned company, will bring 1,200 more scooters to Indianapolis.

For now, Bird and Lime are battling it out. In general, the researcher's analysis shows that, on average, Lime scooters saw more trips each day and longer-lasting trips, while trips on Bird scooters were slightly longer in distance.

These findings came from scooter rides that occurred from Sept. 4 through the end of 2018. To reach these numbers, Apathy excluded outliers, such as rides that said they were more than 50 miles long. When calculating scooter lifespan, he only used data from scooters that left Indianapolis before Dec. 1 and did not return.

December saw the fewest average number of trips per day, presumably due to the colder winter weather. Still, more than 1,800 trips were taken each day in December on average.

Factors like weather, day of the week and events affect ridership, too.

Adding daily high temperatures to the ride data, Apathy saw a spike of nearly four times as many rides on a warm December day compared to colder days earlier that same week.

While ridership is highest on the weekends, a bump in the number of rides is seen around noon each day, the researcher found. Ridership typically peaks in the late afternoon and early evening.

When Taylor Swift performed before more than 55,000 people at Lucas Oil Stadium on Sept. 15, the number of rides spiked. Apathy found that ride totals during the most popular hours that afternoon and evening were more than three times higher than the most popular hours on days earlier that week.

What Bird, Lime, city say about the data

Lime and Bird did not respond when provided an opportunity to review Apathy's findings or provide their own findings. The data — which scooter companies have declined to provide to IndyStar in the past  — were made available to Apathy and IndyStar as open records.

Daniel Hedglin, a senior planner with the city's Department of Metropolitan Development who analyzes the data, told IndyStar that he "generally agrees" with Apathy's assessment of total trips, total distance, average trip distance and average trip duration. The city does not analyze scooter lifespan numbers.

Analysts with the city like Hedglin are also looking at the data to discover trends.

Hedglin said they're specifically looking at how riders are using scooters and whether the city can adjust long-term infrastructure plans to keep people safe.

“I think the city has been very thoughtful over the past decade about how to further connect places Downtown and in the surrounding regions. I feel like in some ways you can see that that work has paid off with scooters,” Hedglin said.

The city has started the process of contracting out an outside company to assist with the analysis.

In the meantime, analysis will be up to city employees and data enthusiasts like Apathy.

Call IndyStar digital producer Ethan May at 317-444-4682 or email him at emay@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @EthanMayJ.