E-scooter hire in Nottingham: Dott’s prices, the no-go zones and where to park
You can hire an e-scooter in Nottingham from Dott, the city’s only e-scooter operator since 26 March 2025. There’s no unlock fee and it costs 29p a minute, so 10 minutes cost £2.90, and you must be 18 or over with a full or provisional driving licence. Every ride ends in a parking bay shown in the app, and the scooter cuts out at the city boundary, so you can’t ride to the City Ground or Trent Bridge. Your own e-scooter is illegal on Nottingham’s roads and pavements.
Nottingham e-scooter hire: Dott, and 15 months without scooters
One company, Dott, runs Nottingham’s shared e-scooters, under a Nottingham City Council concession awarded to its UK arm, TIER Operations Ltd. Dott launched on 26 March 2025 with around 1,300 e-scooters, the council’s figure, and added e-bikes on 17 July 2026. Lime runs e-bikes only: there are no Lime e-scooters in Nottingham.
Wind launched the trial in October 2020, and its fleet switched to Superpedestrian’s LINK scooters in December 2021. The scheme ended abruptly on 22 December 2023, when the operator went into liquidation, leaving Nottingham without hire scooters for about 15 months.
The council describes Dott’s contract as a five-year deal with a break clause in May 2028, when the national trials are due to end. Pages that still say the trial ends in May 2026 are out of date.
On the afternoon of 14 October 2026 the map of Nottingham showed about 750 Dott e-scooters: a snapshot, not the fleet size. It doesn’t show e-bikes. Tap a scooter to open the Dott app, where you unlock and pay.
How much does a Dott scooter cost in Nottingham?
Dott charges no unlock fee and 29p a minute for its e-scooters: the rate in its data on 14 October 2026 and at the launch in March 2025. The app shows the price before you unlock.
| Option | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Pay as you go | No unlock fee + 29p a minute | 10 minutes £2.90, 20 minutes £5.80, 30 minutes £8.70 |
| Round trip pass | £3.99 | Two rides of up to 30 minutes within 24 hours |
| Flex | £2.99 a month | Rides of up to 30 minutes for £2 each |
| Pro | £9.99 a month | Rides of up to 30 minutes for £1 each |
Passes change, and only the app shows the current ones. Once you’ve paid for Flex, any ride of 7 minutes or more costs less than paying by the minute. New to hire scooters? See how to rent an e-scooter.
The council lists four discounted rates; contact Dott if you qualify:
| Rate | Who qualifies | Per minute | 10 minutes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community | People on a low income, disabled people | 14p | £1.40 |
| Heroes | NHS staff, armed forces and veterans, public-sector workers | 14p | £1.40 |
| Elders | People of state pension age or over | 14p | £1.40 |
| Scholars | Higher-education students and staff | 20p | £2.00 |
University of Nottingham students get 35% off pay-as-you-go rides with a promo code linked to their university email.
Are e-scooters legal in Nottingham? Age, licence and fines
Hire scooters are legal because Nottingham is one of England’s 21 trial areas. You must be 18 or over with a full or provisional driving licence (category Q, included in every UK car, moped and motorcycle licence) and pass a short quiz in the app. Visitors can use a full EU or EEA licence, or another country’s full driving licence within 12 months of entering the UK, but never a foreign provisional one.
| Rule | What it means | If you break it |
|---|---|---|
| Pavements | Never: use the road and cycle lanes | £50 fixed penalty |
| One rider | No passengers | Dott’s terms allow a £50 charge |
| Phone | Not in your hand while riding | £200 and 6 points |
| Red lights | Stop, as in a car | £100 and possibly points |
| Drink and drugs | Drink-drive law applies | Court, a driving ban, possibly prison |
| Speed | 15 mph at most; 8 mph in slow zones and on your first three rides | The scooter slows itself |
| Helmet | Strongly encouraged, not compulsory | – |
Dott also runs a licence-style 12-point system, with fines for minor, major and severe offences. The national rules are in our guide to e-scooter law in the UK.
A private e-scooter is illegal on Nottingham’s roads, pavements and cycle lanes and in its parks. Riding one means a £300 fixed penalty and 6 points for having no insurance, and the police can seize it. By July 2026 Operation Wrangel, a city-centre police crackdown on illegal e-bikes and e-scooters, had seized more than 60 vehicles; some riders were ordered to pay over £1,000 and given eight points.
Dott Nottingham no-go zones: where you can and can’t ride
Dott’s area is the City of Nottingham only: the scooter cuts out at the city boundary. Inside, it stops in no-go zones and slows to 8 mph in slow zones. This is how we read Dott’s zone data on 15 October 2026; in the centre it matches the council’s map:
| Where | Riding | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| Old Market Square (Slab Square), the paved centre | No riding | Long Row, South Parade, King Street and Market Street are open; a bay on King Street |
| Victoria Centre, Exchange Walk, Exchange Arcade, Flying Horse Walk | No riding | Victoria bus station is open; a bay on Milton Street |
| Lace Market Square, Theatre Square (Royal Centre tram stop) | No riding | Bays on Fletcher Gate and South Sherwood Street |
| Clumber Street, Bridlesmith Gate, Lister Gate, parts of Hockley and Station Street | Slow: 8 mph | – |
| The Park Estate | Slow: 8 mph | The circuses and Park Steps are no-go zones; no bays inside |
| Wollaton Park | Slow: 8 mph | No bays inside |
| General, Church (Rock) and Basford cemeteries; the Memorial Gardens on Victoria Embankment | No riding | – |
| University of Nottingham: Trent Building courtyard, Jubilee Campus lakeside path | No riding | Only hire scooters are allowed on campus, and never on footpaths |
| Meadow Lane (Notts County), the Forest Recreation Ground | Normal | Bays at both |
| West Bridgford (the City Ground, Trent Bridge), Beeston, Arnold, Carlton, Sutton Bonington, East Midlands Airport | Outside the area | – |
Dott Nottingham parking: bays only
A ride can only end in a parking bay shown in the app: about 300 by the council’s count, 387 in Dott’s data on 15 October 2026. Busy bays can be capped, and the app nudges you towards emptier ones. Find the bay nearest your destination before you set off: the map shows the scooters, not the bays.
In a shared rack, Dott goes on the left and Lime on the right; racks for e-bikes only are Lime’s.
The council warns that riders who park badly will be fined and repeat offenders banned. It publishes no amount, but Dott’s UK terms allow a £50 charge for breaking them and up to £300 to recover a badly parked scooter. To report one, call Dott on 0800 048 8993, around the clock.
Trams, buses, the station and East Midlands Airport
No e-scooters on the tram, NCT buses or trains. NET’s conditions of carriage ban using scooters on the tram system and taking unfolded ones on board. Under NCT’s conditions of 15 February 2026, its buses can’t carry e-scooters or e-bikes, and East Midlands Railway bans e-scooters from its trains and stations, Nottingham included.
Nottingham station: the forecourt is open and part of Station Street slow; the nearest bay is about 70 metres away, with eight within 300 metres. Part of the Broad Marsh bus station area is a no-go zone; use the bay on Carrington Street.
East Midlands Airport is outside the scheme, more than 7 miles from the nearest bay. Take the Skylink Nottingham bus (every 20 minutes by day and hourly at night, around the clock) or the Skylink Express (every half hour, 4am to 11pm). Heading elsewhere? See e-scooter hire in the UK for the other trial areas.
Forest, Notts County, Trent Bridge and Goose Fair
- Nottingham Forest’s City Ground and Trent Bridge cricket ground are in West Bridgford, outside the area. End your ride at the bay on Victoria Embankment, beside Trent Bridge, and walk over the bridge: about 500 metres to either ground.
- Notts County’s Meadow Lane is inside the area, with a bay by the ground. We found no match-day restrictions; check the app before kick-off.
- Goose Fair fills the Forest Recreation Ground for ten days around the start of October. The ground is open for riding, with bays on the Rec itself and on Gregory Boulevard. The 2026 fair, from 25 September to 4 October, drew a record 586,356 visitors, the council estimates; the 2027 dates hadn’t been announced by 15 October 2026.
Dott and Lime e-bikes in Nottingham
Since 17 July 2026 Dott has also rented e-bikes here: no unlock fee and 25p a minute, from 16 and with no driving licence. Lime’s e-bikes, in a separate council scheme since April 2023, cost £1 to unlock and 17p a minute (October 2026), so Dott is cheaper for rides of up to 12 minutes and Lime for longer ones.
Neither is on our map: use the Dott or Lime app. The council’s Ride app also covers Lime’s e-bikes and Dott’s scooters, alongside buses and trams.
Did you know?
- Goose Fair was held in Old Market Square until 1928, when it moved to the Forest Recreation Ground. Today the square’s centre is a no-go zone and the Forest Rec is open.
- Nottingham once had the UK’s busiest fleet. In year one about 500 scooters made roughly a million rides; by December 2022 the council counted over 2,000,000.
- The first scooters had built-in helmets, used only 4% of the time, so the LINK scooters that replaced them in December 2021 did without.
- The “12 month trial” now runs to May 2028. It began in October 2020, to ease travel during the Covid pandemic, and was meant to last a year.
- Wollaton Hall played Wayne Manor in The Dark Knight Rises, filmed there in 2011. Its deer park is now a Dott slow zone.
Questions
- Are there Lime scooters in Nottingham?
- No. Lime runs only e-bikes in Nottingham, in a separate council scheme. Dott is the city’s only e-scooter operator, and since July 2026 it has rented e-bikes too.
- Can I ride a Dott scooter to the City Ground or Trent Bridge?
- No. Both are in West Bridgford, outside the City of Nottingham, and the scooter cuts out at the boundary. End your ride at the bay on Victoria Embankment by Trent Bridge and walk over the bridge: about 500 metres to either ground.
- Is there a student discount for Dott in Nottingham?
- Yes. Higher-education students and staff can ask Dott for its Scholars rate of 20p a minute instead of 29p. University of Nottingham students get 35% off pay-as-you-go rides with a promo code linked to their university email.
- Can I ride my own e-scooter in Nottingham?
- No. As everywhere in the UK, a private e-scooter is illegal on roads, pavements and cycle lanes and in parks, and Nottinghamshire Police seize them. You may ride one only on private land with the owner’s permission.
- How long will Dott run Nottingham’s e-scooters?
- The council calls Dott’s contract a five-year deal with a break clause in May 2028, when the national trials are due to end. If the government extends the trials, the council can extend the contract.