Making mobility accessible to all

Our vision is to make cities for people and not cars, and that means all people. We’ve been providing micromobility services around Europe since 2018 but we’ve also seen that not everyone is using these services.

Women, older age groups, lower-income citizens and people living outside of dense city centres are under-served by this new mode of transport. We want to tailor our service better so that it can reach everyone.

That’s why we brought in the Paris-based research company 6t to help us understand what’s needed to make e-scooters more inclusive. They’ve just published a roadmap for inclusive micromobility with us and now we’re starting a one-year research project together.

6t specialises in mobility practices, transport and new mobility trends so they are an ideal partner for us. Marion Lagadic, a project manager at 6t, recently suggested that the feeling was mutual. 

“Since the beginning of the micromobility boom, 6t’s studies have highlighted the lack of inclusiveness in this field,” she said.

“We were delighted when the Voi team asked us to support them in tackling this important topic. Today, Voi has adopted a purposeful and ambitious strategy to address this issue, and we are looking forward to seeing its effects.”

The recently published roadmap highlights three main categories to look at when creating inclusive mobility. They are:

1. Accessibility
2. Capability
3. Mobility justice

Accessibility means making sure that there is an equal level of service in all areas as well as an affordable service for all users.

Capability is about ensuring that everyone can use the service. Are there time constraints, physical or cognitive disabilities, or financial challenges that stop someone from using the service? In other words, it’s not enough to have a scooter outside everyone’s front door. Everyone has to be able to use it too. Women, for example, tend to cycle less due to higher risk aversion. This can only be solved by better infrastructure so we can’t do this on our own at Voi.

Mobility justice is the most ambitious category and this means involving under-represented users and getting their help to shape the service in the future. Not many people are working with this area at all.

We’re working with all three but we can do much more. At the same time, we’re proud to be the first operator to create a roadmap to address the issue and we hope it can inspire others to take a structured approach and help us to create inclusive transport mobility together.