Since the new year, daily trips averaged about 56,000 a month until June, when they dropped down to 48,633 trips, or 1621 a day - the lowest in more than 12 months. Only a year ago, the council were touting the program's improvement with a 35 per cent increase in patronage. Lime's emergence was followed in August this year by Neuron electric scooters, both under contract with the council to provide hundreds of e-scooters for residents who have eagerly taken up the new technology. CityCycle Trips 68,472 trips taken in July 2018

59,943 trips taken in October 2018

67,482 trips taken in January 2019

56,724 trips taken in April 2019

48,633 trips taken in June 2019 Daily memberships for CityCycle, allowing users to rent bikes for 24 hours without having to sign up to a full monthly membership, also saw a sharp drop. They fell from 11,545 in July 2018 to just 4677 in June this year.

Commuters were also choosing not to purchase monthly memberships, with 1010 sold in July last year and just 467 sold in June this year. The nine-year-old public cycling scheme is operated by JC Decaux in partnership with the council, providing the docked bikes across the inner city. The council recently signed a new sponsorship deal with NRMA Insurance to advertise on the 2000 CityCycle bikes, removing the old yellow Lipton mudguards in favour of blue. E-scooter operators, such as lime, have put the squeeze on Brisbane's CityCycle scheme. Credit:Albert Perez/AAP The sponsorship deal was expected to double revenue, following difficulties with the scheme balancing its books.

This years' council budget predicted expenses of $4 million with $11 million in revenue to create an expected net balance of $7 million. Lord mayor Adrian Schrinner told Brisbane Times he still supported the scheme, but wanted some changes. Cr Schrinner said the popularity of e-scooters was understandable with the rapid pace of technological change, and the council was still investigating introducing electric bikes. "Getting around a city in the middle of summer is pretty hot and sweaty, and some people appreciate the opportunity to have electronic assistance," he said. Cr Schrinner said JC Decaux had wanted to test electric bikes in other cities before bringing it to Brisbane to ensure the technology would work as needed.

"It's not happening as quickly as I would have liked, we've been talking about this with JC Decaux for a while," he said. The lord mayor pointed out about 50,000 people were still using the scheme each month, and said the membership structure of the scheme was another area on which the council had been "pushing" JC Decaux. Daily CityCycle memberships 11,545 daily memberships sold in July 2018

7,768 daily memberships sold in October 2018

10,789 daily memberships sold in January 2019

6,569 daily memberships sold in April 2019

4,677 daily memberships sold in June 2019 "The contract was signed in 2009, so it's a decade old, and it started rolling out in 2010. So some of the technology is a decade old," Cr Schrinner said. "There's always an opportunity to work with JC Decaux to refresh that and make it easier to sign up, and rather than having to go to a station or do it on a website, we'd like to see it easier to do it on our phone and make it quicker and easier to sign up."