Future proof: Safe, responsible riding for our cities
2 years ago
2 years ago
We’re thrilled that micromobility and sustainable travel have become part of your city’s strategic revolution to create people-focused streets. In busy car-driven cities with crowded public transport, our e-scooters and e-bikes are a natural fit, providing meaningful and sustainable change. However, to achieve this, safety must come first. To guarantee safe rides and safe cities, we provide pragmatic tools and initiatives from COVID-19 proofing, rider reward incentives, collaborations with local authorities to smart use of technology. All bases are covered. Read on to see how we do it.
We ensure that when people do travel, they ride with the utmost confidence that their journey won’t contribute to the spread.
Based on continuously updated guidance and information from the NHS and World Health Organisation (WHO), we’ve worked closely with riders and local authorities to ensure the safe use of scooters throughout the city. Additionally, all our scooters are disinfected every 24 hours by our fantastic ground team, who carry out this work in protective equipment.
Did you know all our operations are done in-house? We really do mean everything – management, hardware technology, software development, operations and product maintenance. Additionally, our ground teams oversee and manage our ever-growing fleet. Not only does doing everything in-house increase safety and maintenance standards of our vehicles, it guarantees reliable, consistent quality. Long term.
Our scooters are designed to last, from the design and manufacturing process to up and riding. With turn signals and reflectors for darker days, our scooters aren’t just a pretty face, they’re highly visible. Thanks to our license plates on the rear, we can keep an eye on rider behavior if necessary to prevent unsafe riding on the roads.
As well as being aesthetically striking, our scooters are also packed with smart technology to guide riders, ensuring they’re fully compliant with local laws for maximum safety. Dott’s geofencing automatically controls and stops riders from traveling through no-go zones, leaving city boundaries, or ending a ride in no-park zones.
Our speed zones also automatically adjust the vehicle speed in areas where riders need to drive extra carefully, for example, near schools, hospital entrances or with high numbers of pedestrians. Not bad, hey?
Our scooters are packed with smart technology to guide riders, ensuring they’re fully compliant with local laws for maximum safety.
When micromobility was first introduced to cities in the past, scooters and bikes were carelessly strewn in random places or inappropriate parking spots. In addition to this being unsafe and unacceptable, it added to the pile-up of unusable hardware, creating a less than favorable environment for nature and ecosystems. This was something we’ve been continuously dedicated to improving.
To support our movement towards smart parking, we created our own built-in GPS technology to locate vehicles and notify riders when they need directions on where to park. Our in-app smart parking areas ensure riders park in the right Dott zones, which are specific to each city’s infrastructure. This software feature has successfully led to more than 97% of rides ending within specifically marked parking areas in Dott cities.
With this tech, we can also find scooters that have fallen into rivers or other unwanted locations, for example. Our Dott patrol team is then automatically alerted, springing to the rescue. These thoughtful initiatives result in saving on time and resources.
We give our riders extensive education when using our vehicles. For those just starting out, we’ve built ‘Beginner Mode’ technology so they can get used to riding. Data showed us that 33% of accidents happen within the first three rides, so we limited the engine speed for these first few trips. This helps riders get comfortable with our scooters and reduces the likelihood of accidents.
We’re also championing a scooter safety training course in partnership with the AA DriveTech, showing new riders the rules of the road. It’s packed with tips and tricks and ends with an onboarding safety quiz to test riders’ knowledge before they hop on board.
To discourage riding under the influence of alcohol, we proactively partnered with AB InBev. Collaborating with local law enforcement ensures its effectiveness. Additionally, in-app prompts and short rider tutorials provide accessible, regular pointers to keep our riders on the straight and narrow and our city streets safe.
We all know it: being safe is cool. That’s why we’re working on our Smooth Rider Club program, with safety point rewards for our riders that they can put towards discounted or free rides. You can earn safety points by completing our online and in-person rules of the road courses, for example, or snapping a helmet selfie that you share with friends. By encouraging our riders to take responsibility for the safe use of our vehicles, we’re creating an environment of shared initiative, encouraging responsible behavior whenever riding with Dott.
Providing the right hardware works. Smart technology works. Strictly adhering to safety, compliance and data protection standards works. Encouraging our riders to be extra aware and thoughtful with incentives and education also works. But where would we be without our communities?
That’s why we’ve teamed up with local organizations, impacted charities, law enforcement, urbanists and riders to create the Dott Safety Board. By collaborating with local law enforcement, we’re working to reduce vandalism, theft, scooter misuse and drunk riding.
To ensure we have the utmost safety measures in place for our cities and non-riders, we partner with everybody who does, and should, have a say. We work with city ambassadors, partially sighted and blind charities and transport authorities to create advanced infrastructure and safety measures for our cities. Our in-app smart technology also prevents disruption to pedestrians and keeps walking areas safe.
Finally, we’re open and transparent with our data. We share our accident reporting with authorities and research institutes, empowering us to quickly create and provide solutions to identified challenges.
We’re confident that micromobility is crucial in playing a role in the fight for cleaner air and safer streets. By dedicating ourselves to creating a service that works safely for everyone, anywhere, we believe that our cities, riders and the team at Dott are all playing a part in protecting our world and the places we call home.
