Scooters And One Wheels

Voi, to make parking e-scooters safer for blind and susceptible pedestrians

Micromobility operator Voi today announced the launch of its redesigned parking racks, developed in partnership with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) to reduce clutter on the street and improve the parking habits of e-scooters.

The new parking racks have extended and raised side walls to enclose the entire length of the e-scooter. Voi has also increased the color contrast on all sides. This makes the scooter carrier visually more distinctive and helps the stick users to locate and avoid the scooter carrier more easily. Each rack can hold up to 10 e-scooters. The first redesigned RNIB racks will be installed in Birmingham and then rolled out in areas where Voi is lagging behind its e-scooters.

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This project is part of Voi’s broader collaboration with RNIB to understand the needs of blind and partially sighted pedestrians. The micromobility operator has already taken the first steps to implement the organization’s recommendations, which relate to key elements such as driver education, training, e-scooter sound warnings and now the redesign of its parking racks.

Voi is the UK’s largest operator of shared e-scooters. Trials are being carried out in 18 cities, including Cambridge, Birmingham and Liverpool. Voi drivers have made over 2 million trips in the UK to date. However, the main challenges for greater acceptance of micromobility are infrastructure and parking, as improperly parked e-scooters can be dangerous for pedestrians and other road users.

Voi is committed to investing in parking infrastructure to make parking easier, increase safety and limit clutter on the street. According to a study by the Norwegian Institute for Transport Economics, special parking spaces for shared e-scooters can help solve clutter on the sidewalk. When testing Voi parking lots in Oslo, as well as unbranded parking lots on the sidewalks, Voi found that more than half of e-scooter drivers ended their journeys in a specific area. Voi currently has scooter racks installed in Northampton, Portsmouth and Southampton and many more will be deployed over the next several months.

Voi has focused on user education and innovative features that encourage good parking behavior. In the UK, the company recently introduced an end-of-driving feature in the Voi app. This requires drivers to take and submit a photo of their parked scooter after each trip, which the Voi support team will review. Drivers who abandon e-scooters or block the sidewalk will receive a warning for their first violation and a £ 25 fine for subsequent incidents. So far, Voi has been able to determine an improvement in good parking behavior of 70% with the introduction of this function.

John Worsfold, Manager, Implementation of Strategic Innovations at RNIB, says: “The Voi team has worked with enthusiasm to better understand the concerns and needs of blind and partially sighted people and we look forward to the resulting redesign of their e- Test scooter luggage rack. We also look forward to learning more about the use and impact of this redesign for blind and visually impaired people when they are tested in our cities.

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