Voi translates its Safety Report and confirms planned quarterly updates

Voi’s Safety Report, launched in June, has now been translated into several languages, with a commitment to quarterly updates which are informed by incoming crash reports. To complement the launch of these translations, we are also kicking off a safety campaign on social media. 

At Voi, we believe it’s essential to heighten awareness about e-scooter safety. By understanding the true risks of crashes and injuries, we can improve the safety of our service together with our users and the cities we operate in. 

This is the reason why we decided to create our Safety Report. The report features insights about e-scooter safety, using in-depth technical research and interviews with traffic safety experts. In addition, the report explains our approach to improving safety in the micromobility sector and the measures we are taking in accordance with our findings.  

“We are committed to working relentlessly to build the safest possible micromobility service”, says Kristina Hunter Nilsson, VP of Communications at Voi Technology. “By sharing our understanding of the safety risks and our approach to mitigating these risks, be it through technology, education or communication, we hope that our stakeholders can gain insight into the issues and continue to challenge us on how we can work together to make streets safer.”  

The Safety Report is now available in many more languages, as listed below. This is to make the information accessible for as many of our users, partners and other stakeholders as possible. 

🇬🇧  Safer streets with shared micro-mobility

🇩🇪  Sicherere Straßen mit geteilter Mikro-mobilität

🇪🇸  Calles más seguras con micro-movilidad compartida

🇫🇷  Des rues plus sûres avec la micro mobilité partagée

🇮🇹  Strade più sicure con la micro­-mobilità condivisa

🇸🇪  Säkrare gator med delad mikro-mobilitet

🇩🇰  Mere sikre veje med delt mikro-mobilitet

🇳🇴  Sikrere gater med delt mikromobilitet

The first quarterly update and more to come

The research presented in the report has helped us identify that there are seven main safety risks for e-scooters and shared micromobility in general. The main issues are as follows:

1. Heavy, fast-moving vehicles present the greatest road safety risks. 
2. Lack of safe infrastructure is a significant risk for all lightweight travellers.  
3. The first rides taken by e-scooter users have an increased crash risk. 
4. Inadequate knowledge of traffic rules increases risky riding behaviour. 
5. Riding under the influence of alcohol and drugs is a critical risk factor. 
6. Lack of helmet usage increases head injury risk. 
7. Incorrectly parked scooters and pavement riding increases the risk for other road users.

We believe that it’s essential to look at this list from a holistic perspective since actions targeting one factor may negatively influence another. They are, however, the main risk areas where we focus efforts to achieve our Vision Zero target – which means zero fatalities and injuries in our value chain by 2030. Our Vision Zero target is measured by the number of crashes per million ridden kilometres ridden. 

“As a company striving to transform urban mobility, we have a huge responsibility, and therefore we must do as much as possible to support authorities, citizens, employees, investors and others to hold us accountable for our work to improve safety.”

Having a target is one thing, but it’s also important for us and our stakeholders to be able to track our improvements. Hence it’s essential to make it tangible, transparent and measurable. With this report, we have pledged to share the progress we have made towards achieving this target every quarter, moving forward. In addition, we report data to help others understand the performance of actions we are taking to increase safety. 

“This report is to inform ourselves and others about whether the safety measures we are taking are having an impact,” says Kristina Hunter Nilsson. “As a company striving to transform urban mobility, we have a huge responsibility, and therefore we must do as much as possible to support authorities, citizens, employees, investors and others to hold us accountable for our work to improve safety.”

Campaigning to raise awareness of safety risks 

Shared micromobility has seen rapid growth in recent years. Today, Voi has more than six million users in 12 countries and we operate in more than 70 cities. We know that many of these e-scooter riders are new to riding in traffic, particularly on roads in more central areas, and hence they need to learn how to navigate the roads safely. 

This is why we launched the world’s first virtual traffic school RideLikeVoila in 2019. Since the beginning of 2021 more than 200,000 users have taken lessons on Ride-Like-Voila, with around a thousand learners per day on average. 

In addition, we are communicating directly with our users through the Voi app, email and social media to raise awareness around e-scooter safety. During 2021, we have performed several safety campaigns on topics such as the benefits of helmet use, risks of riding under the influence of alcohol or tandem riding. 

“Now we are starting a new social media campaign to raise awareness of the risks associated with e-scooters, and how we at Voi work to mitigate these risks”, says Kristina Hunter Nilsson. “Shared micromobility can have a lot of benefits for making our streets safer by helping to reverse car dependency, but it’s important that our users are also aware of the risks of ending up in a crash so that they ride and park both safely and responsibly.”