Another season of battery powered scooters and bike ridership options is upon us in Syracuse, and VEO is reporting more people are using its electric vehicles and relying on their automobiles less.
A recent survey of 500 local VEO customers indicates the service reduced their car and vehicle usage by 42%. Meanwhile, the company said it’s seeing growth in the volume of riders for the third year in a row.
Local operations manager Paul Colabufo said as more people move into the region, VEO provides an alternative to street-clogging automobiles.
“We’ve got a city that’s growing, it’s going to be growing the upcoming years and the way to handle that is to have fewer people take cars," Colabufo said. "Syracuse is an easy city to get around on scooters and bikes and we’re already seeing that some people are making those choices.”
VEO plans to gradually increase its fleet of vehicles by 70% across the city this season to 850. Colabufo said the accessibility to additional transportation options at VEO’s various rental hubs is also growing the use of puic transit.
“The data suggests that bus ridership goes up when scooters are around and what goes down is like Uber and Lyfts," Colabufo said. "And the reason for that is that taking the bus becomes much more appealing when you know you don’t have to walk that last mile to get where you’re going. You have a scooter you can just hop on to take you there.”
Colabufo said VEO riders should wear helmets and to drive scooters like a vehicles, obeying all traffic lights and signage, for the safest experience.
