Singapore-based e-scooter company Neuron Mobility is to test a smart device that detects dangerous riding in four cities in Australia, Canada and the UK.

The technology trial will take place over six months and will involve 1500 e-scooters.

The safety-first e-scooters will be fitted with a e-scooter brain that can detect dangerous riding, responds to geofences and provides location accuracy to within 10cm.

The dangerous riding detection feature uses smart sensors to counteract unsafe riding habits in real time. It will also be able to profile riders, giving them an individual safety rating, so they can be educated, corrected and incentivised for good riding behaviour.

Bad riding habits it will detect include sidewalk riding, aggressive swerving, skidding, tandem riding and kerb jumping.

High accuracy location technology (Halt) can pinpoint an e-scooter’s location to within 10cm, making it at least 50 times more accurate than the average GPS-based location system which plots to around five to ten metres.

Rapid geofence detection triggers an e-scooter’s response to a geofence in 0.3s as opposed to the usual 6 to 12s, making the e-scooters more controllable in cities and potentially safer.

The trial’s findings from Ottawa in Canada, Brisbane and Darwin in Australia, and Slough in the UK will determine how selected features will be rolled out across Neuron’s fleet internationally over the next 12 months.

“We look forward to further enhancing rider safety and putting councils back in control of their e-scooter programmes,” said a company statement.