Nave chair of the transportation committee.

I am joined with my colleagues.

Councilor Patrona Jones Rouser, Comic Council President Rita Panayagua, Councillor Donna Moore, Counselor at large, Hannah Aaron Wright.

We are here this morning to discuss the renewal of the contract of the vehicle bikes.

I have three gentlemen here.

If you'd like to introduce yourself.

Yeah, thanks for having us this morning.

I'm Reed Neal.

I'm partnerships and policy manager for VO over the Syracuse Market.

I'm Paul Calabufo, the uh operations manager, boots on the ground here in Syracuse.

Paul.

At last the face to the name.

Hi everyone.

Uh Jeffrey Hoover, Director of Government Partnerships at V.

So what we want to discuss is uh is where do we go with VO?

I did speak with Reed and uh Paul yesterday on this.

We went over a number of issues.

We went over numerous uh constituent complaints and concerns.

We we spoke about um a lot of things that bother them from veal being on their wands, uh the safety of vehicle, the bikes itself, they're run on lithium batteries, and uh also where do we go?

Where can we have uh land, where can we have some locations throughout the city that it's viable to put them in in safe locations, bike racks where we can have uh science that says VO.

And how can we can outreach to the community?

How can we uh participate with other organizations and and to be a good neighbor and to be prompt and responsive uh on this issue.

So uh Chaff, do you want to start?

Uh yeah, absolutely.

Um first off, thank you for having us and thank you for the opportunity to have this conversation.

And counselor, thank you for those comments.

I I couldn't agree more.

Um do you wanna and so you know, I think the context I'd like to share here to start with is you know, when we were here uh before council at this time last year, um, you know, we reworked our scope of work, um, you know, uh pr really grateful for for council's input.

Um, and we had sort of five North stars uh coming out of that process.

And so um, you know, we made uh considerable new financial investments uh in the market uh in the neighborhood of about 200 in the neighborhood of about 250,000 of new spend.

Um and that you know was kind of headlined by um $50,000 of net new uh revenue we paid to this directly paid to the city in the form of uh trip fees.

Um we also made considerable new investments in in the community and in the equity space, uh 130,000 of direct rebates to riders.

Um and then uh you know considerable uh new spend on Paul's team in the form of increased labor budgets, increased van budgets, and we also uh initiated uh for the first time kind of direct financial support in the community.

We uh provided grants to uh the creek rats for um uh new equipment uh to do their wonderful work.

Uh uh plus you know, over the years we've we've invested considerable amount of staff time uh supporting the Creek Rats as well.

Um we launched tip over detection in March of last year.

Uh we'll get into this in more detail, but we from in 2025, our team was proactively curing tipped over vehicles without a single without without needing a report from the community uh in about four a little over four and a half hours, which was a 70% improvement from 2024.

I already touched on the 130,000 dollars of rebated dollars to riders directly to riders of anyone irrespective of any means testing ended a trip in one of a designated opportunity zone throughout the city, uh got a dollar back on their ride.

We launched uh the virtual parking coach we talked about at length when I was here in August uh before this council.

Uh we launched that uh we launched that tool uh mid-August, and just since that time we prevented over 10,000 instances of what the the tool determined to be bad parking.

Um and then uh we codified a cure time or three hours.

We also saw significant improvements uh uh in 2025 relative to 2024.

Uh over the course of the year, we you know, we had responded to thousands of tickets uh average time under under that three-hour mark and on an individual basis, you know, north of 90 to 95% uh success rate reaching uh requested retrievals within uh that three-hour mark.

So a quick snapshot uh of 2025.

We had tremendous program growth, yet again, rides were up 33, excuse me, 34%, 73% of the all of our rides were taken during the weekday uh or were taken, excuse me, during the the work week, quote unquote.

So this is not just a weekend pastime.

Um the rides per vehicle per day, kind of our base core metric when we look at how well used uh the vehicles are was up 13%.

Uh again, weekdays leading the pack here.

Um, and just to set context, one ride per vehicle per day is considered good.

And so 1.7, nearly two rides per vehicle per day is fantastic.

Uh we have 30 over 30,000 uh unique riders, near uh nearly a 20% increase.

All at the same time, our median trip fee went down.

Uh it went down 2% relative to last year.

Um all of our memberships, including VO access, uh had great growth, uh, 90% year over year uh VO access uh growth.

Um next slide.

And so you know, I have some data here.

I'm not gonna walk through each last one of these uh about who our riders are.

Um most of our riders in the market are actually not students.

Um excuse me, a significant, you know, kind of proportion do not have a driver's license.

Um and a significant number uh overwhelmingly live in uh you know comparatively low-income households.

Uh so you know, we we have much more data we can provide this council and in the city that we regularly provide on a from our our annual rider survey, but these are kind of the headlines as to who our riders are in Syracuse.

Um, the the last kind of note I want to offer some context around looking at the spring and the summer uh is that you know, our our ridership really is does not hinge on the SU calendar.

Uh it certainly doesn't hurt, but as you can see, you know, as we get into the summer, you know, July and then you know, August, the the utilization of our vehicles actually picks up as SU goes out of season.

And so we're not, you know, I I you know have certainly uh may anticipate that you know there are some questions.

Are we are we mostly a tool for kind of the the SU kids, uh the students in in Syracuse?

And I I think definitively not.

We we are love the utilization that we can provide.

We hope we can you know convince students they don't need cars on campus, but you know, we're stressing the point we're a tool for for all Syracuse residents here.

Um I want to say a bit about the the access program.

Um really this is our low-income program.

And so I'm also offering some context relative to some peer cities uh in which we also operate.

Um I will note Cleveland is is maybe perhaps a bit of an outlier because that's a a market we share with another company.

Uh it's not a an exclusive market as is the case in Syracuse or Rochester Toledo and Hartford are also all exclusive.

So just wanted to note that.

But you know, A, you'll see the the really fantastic growth uh that we've seen in the program.

Um and Syracuse is kind of outperforming its peers uh in this space as well.

So there is very in, you know, I will be the first person to say there's absolutely more work to be done here.

Um I think there's lots of opportunity uh, but I do want to recognize the the growth and the success we've had uh thus far.

So uh next slide.

And so, you know, when we're talking about our riders, when do they use the program?

Again, you know, really kind of the meaty part of the curve is between one to nine p.m.

nearly 60% of all of our trips took place during those hours.

And so, you know, I think another concern that that you know can be offered about these programs at times is you know, this is a kind of a late night joy riding come home from the bar type of mayhem inducing thing.

And you know, uh, I don't pretend that you know everyone is a perfect angel when they get on a shared micromobility vehicle, but you know, you can see that this is a a real you know a incredibly well used tool for people to kind of go about their daily lives, including given the the high volume of trips on weekdays uh is a commute tool, uh very much so.

So to touch on uh revenue share in a little bit more detail.

So beginning last year, we provided the city a 15 cent per trip uh revenue share.

Uh we booked just a few dollars shy of 50,000 of revenue paid to the city uh this year.

And there are trips in which or for which that uh that revenue share does not apply uh primarily via access or uh other membership trips uh where we're offering either you know uh where we're offering extremely discounted rates to our riders and opportunity zone trips, trips that end in the opportunity zones that we'll we'll chat about in a little bit.

Um so we don't pay uh fees to the city on on those trips, but essentially any other trip that's that's taken, uh we pay a 15 cent fee to the city and began that for the first time last year.

Uh a little a little more specifics on the automated tip over detection.

Uh we launched that essentially when we kicked off service uh very early spring last year.

Um we can really flex the prioritization, be responsive to you know, whether it be a public report, uh an ongoing event, uh, or just the our own uh utilization data.

Um, you know, we have a lot of uh opportunity to really prioritize where we expect you know where we can see the highest tipped over uh vehicles, excuse me, where the highest tipped over vehicles uh concentrations exist.

Um so in 2024, you know, we had we were essentially collecting data, but Paul's team was not kind of actioning that data.

It was a yeah, we were kind of rolling out the feature and and wanted to establish a baseline essentially.

And so, you know, over the course of that year, uh, you know, with no kind of direct intervention, we were clocking about 16 hours uh median cure time for tipped over vehicles which were not reported to us.

And in 2025, with the benefit of that uh with the benefit of that tool, and even in the context of tens of thousands, 40,000 more reported tipped over vehicles, uh you know, self-identified, excuse me, tipped over vehicles, an increase uh an increase that I mean, these are staggering numbers, like truly have not seen anything like this in any other market where we use this tool.

Um, you know, increase of 140, you know, tipped over vehicles per day, our cure time drop from 16 hours to four hours and 45 minutes.

Uh again, none of you know, not to say that some of those vehicles weren't also reported, of course, but you know, this is entirely automated and you know, Paul uh enables Paul's team to be proactive rather than just being reactive.

Um we talked about you know opportunity zones.

Uh the this is kind of the initial map that we identified in partnership with DPW.

Um, you know, we we kind of got to a place last summer in late June where we finalize these areas.

And so the basic premise here is that a rider will receive uh autumn in in an automated fashion, they don't have to make any request.

Uh there's no you know, nothing manual for the rider to do.

They end a trip in one of these areas um and they receive their uh standard dollar unlock uh fee um uh back to them, excuse me.

Um you know, these areas were selected primarily uh, you know, having a sort of a demographic mix of uh you know what was understood to be very low personal car ownership uh and low household incomes and a dearth of transit options.

Um no application is necessary, no means testing is necessary to take advantage of these discounts.

And so just a little more kind of in-depth information.

We actually expanded the opportunity zone map a little bit throughout the course of the year, and you can see kind of by neighborhood uh where all of those uh kind of trip in these are all trip ends.

Uh that's the kind of the basis for the discount.

So you can see where those uh were distributed throughout the city.

And in some, like I mentioned at kind of the top of the conversation, over 130,000 uh refunded directly to riders.

Um virtual parking coach, probably the most discussed item on the list is really meant to drive uh improved parking behavior.

Um, again, uh I am absolutely unabashed to say that you know we were delayed in uh launching this tool.

That was you know, that was on me.

And you know, we we talked about this in length in August.

Um, and also that there's of course there is more work to be done here.

And so um the but the the premise behind virtual parking coach is it's an AI powered tool.

When a rider ends their trip, it is uh intended to in real time analyze the the parking behavior of the rider, instruct the rider how to take corrective action, and uh you know, essentially require the rider uh to do so before ending their trip.

Um works in the context of the city's built environment, and the city does not need to make any type of infrastructure improvements to leverage this tool.

Um, you know, so we had 10,000 instances where riders took corrective action from August till the end of the year and improved their parking outcomes, and you can kind of see the improvement here where the rider, the vehicle was hanging out.

Uh, this is just one example from September.

The vehicle is kind of hanging out in the middle of a plaza.

Uh the rider took corrective action and moved it essentially to a bike rack, which is exactly the behavior uh we want to see.

Uh this is a uh very quick video showing the tool in real time in on Syracuse's streets.

This is me here in August.

Uh I am not a scooter.

And so you see it's blocking the sidewalk.

And this is like a screen recording of my VO customer app.

And so you there's just a few seconds of kind of lag in between each.

It will detect whether the vehicle's tipped over.

So when we have the um vehicle tipped over detection, is that does it activate after a certain amount of time of it being tipped over, or is it immediate?

It's essentially immediate.

So does that also work when you have um impact um incidents where someone like hits something or they crash that's something we're uh kind of real-time rider analysis is something we're launching kind of in the process of launching across our fleet now, um, across the country across the company, uh, that will look for things like hard swerves, hard breaks, impact, and if there's essentially enough of those detected on a single ride, the ride speed will be slowed.

Um, on impact specifically, the vehicles also have a system we call we refer to as perception, but it's essentially it's like your car is on board computer.

And if there is an impact or something else, that you know, that the vehicle is damaged, of course, the the vehicle will take itself out of service if if its core functions are compromised.

Okay.

So that is already happening.

That is already happening, and then the kind of the broader rider analysis is rolling out as we speak.

Uh next slide, please.

You have more?

Pardon me?

We have more.

Uh, just a almost nearly.

All right, go ahead.

Um, and so you know uh the I think just about the last kind of North Star from the expanded scope of work last year was um the uh you know, kind of broadly referring to these as 311s, but uh kind of requested uh you know, requested retrievals from either the city staff, from counselors directly, from the community at large.

And you can see our our response time dropped from two uh uh median response time from two hours and 33 minutes down to two hours and eleven minutes from 24 down to 25.

Um, and our percentage uh responded to uh under that three-hour mark increased dramatically from 77% all the way up to 92%.

Um, you know, we did have a like slight, you know, uh a modest decrease in in the ultra fast cures from 56% to 40%, but but I think more than you know, kind of the reasoning behind that I would say is that um you know we really focused on making uh attacking you know the the requested responses kind of more broadly and making sure we're at it at a broad scale under that three hour mark.

Uh about last but not least, to do that we made significant uh significant investments in uh the local team.

Um our van fleet increase by 33 percent.

Uh we'll continue to increase that that service vehicle fleet as uh you know as conditions require in certainly including you know on occasions where we increase our local fleet.

Um we increased our our labor by more than 22 percent.

We kind of look at that as as like an overall total of hours, uh, but we did employ more than 40 Syracuse residents on on the local team throughout the course of the year.

Um and uh apologies I I left the XX there, but uh over 80 percent will we'll correct that before we send the stack on to council, but over 80 percent of the staff were local, were specifically uh residents of of the city, uh city proper.

Um we issue, you know, we we also at the same time got stricter with our riders.

Uh Paul and his team issued 50% more violations to our riders.

Uh you know, when we come across a vehicle that's you know parked particularly poorly, we're able to analyze.

We use the the virtual parking coach tool if a rider ignores that.

Uh it does essentially guarantee us we will have a picture of the vehicle, the condition in which the rider left it.

Uh so we're able to issue many more violations.

Uh those violations also had more teeth.

Uh, we had a huge increase of violations that that uh accompanied with it a monetary fine, and we also removed riders from our platform at a much more aggressive rate uh for repeated bad behavior.

And so what's next in Syracuse, uh kind of a new vehicle design.

Uh we're launching two new vehicles.

If you can fast forward, those are obviously just uh concept renderings there.

Oh, pardon me.

Um the if you can go back.

Uh the um the vehicle on the left is a three-wheeled vehicle.

We're kind of we're calling the trike is meant for to radically increase the kind of scope of rider who might feel comfortable using our service, people with mo, you know, really uh much much more considerable mobility issues, people with poor balance, uh, or just folks who just aren't comfortable riding on two wheels.

Um we'll have storage capacity to carry you know larger bags, uh, but also things like oxygen tanks, uh, you know, larger quantities of medical supplies, canes and walkers, um, and the vehicle on the right is the concept of a cargo bike um where we really want to focus when those vehicles come to Syracuse, really want to focus deploying in you know known areas of uh you know, kind of food deserts.

Uh it's one thing to get to a grocery store on a scooter, it's another thing to get home on a scooter uh when you have bags.

So um really thinking about you know expanding who our riders are and what case they'll you know, what use case they they kind of bring to the table.

Before I worked at Vio, I worked at Zipcar, the car sharing company, and kind of the ethos there is like some days you need a Honda Civic, some days you need a minivan.

And the micromobility can be exactly the same kind of mindset.

I was at a conference in Philly last year and they had about five different bikes.

Yeah.

So and the a really cool thing, uh, next slide, please.

Really cool thing we're doing.

Uh we have uh an agreement with Centro that uh for any rider that rides their vehicle to a centro stop, gets on the bus and scans that QR code, they'll get a dollar back.

Centro doesn't have to invest a penny.

The city doesn't have to invest a penny.

Um, and so this is one more way where we're making it not just cheaper for our riders to ride, but very specifically cheaper for our riders to use our vehicles to connect to public transportation.

And so great for Centro, great for us, great for the riders, really kind of a win-win win on all sides.

Um, and we're super excited to to roll you know be rolling this out in the spring.

Oh, that meant that was meant to be paired with the the cargo slide, uh, cargo bike slide.

Uh, but you know, look I having identified zip codes uh in Syracuse specifically 13205, uh where overwhelming majority of of housing units are not within a three-quarter mile walk to a grocery store.

Uh large plurality of residents in the neighborhood don't have access to a car.

And that's that's it.

Okay.

Thanks for your thanks for the opportunity.

Sure.

So I want to touch on basically talking about what's central.

So is there a bicycle rack at uh at the transportation hub where they can go?

There is.

Yeah, uh there uh I I'll let Paul answer uh more uh directly.

But this is also meant to be applicable for any centro stop uh across the city, not just at the main station downtown.

So it would also be important to have bike racks.

Uh there are bus stops.

Yeah.

Uh if you have any sites for potential uh bike racks in the city, you have any sites available that you're a discussion.

We have we have 44 right now in the city, but we always happy to add more.

Uh, you know, I'm always looking for uh you know information on where people want them.

Obviously, we want the scooters where people want to use them.

So there's 44 right now, but there can be however many, you know, you should work semi uh data or where they are.

And your presentation, could you make that available to every counselor?

Uh please.

Absolutely, of course.

We could we can work on that.

I also want to touch in one second.

Yeah, go ahead.

Of those 44 um bike racks, how many were already existing that that you guys didn't install?

Um I want to say something like 25.

I I don't know the exact number, but it's in that ballpark.

We also I think there was a pre-existing bike share here before us, and we converted the preexisting rocks.

Yeah, that's where that's where those 25 can be.

Okay.

All right.

Now you mentioned about joy riding.

Someone's had too much to drink, they can get on a vehicle bike.

My concern if they're intoxicated, they may be going right in the middle and having a good time.

And that that's a problem.

That's a problem.

So I think we have to consider we talk about well, if you're leaving a bar, you want to do some drink, you're intoxicated.

Well, you shouldn't be riding any vehicle, including a scooter.

So that's something uh a tool we're working on.

Um that's essentially a cognition test for riders.

Okay.

You know, we need to be very clear that you know, we are not making a stone cold representation as to someone's intoxication.

Right.

Uh, but you know, there are essentially we just want to increase the friction on riders who uh have may have had too much to drink.

We can target that as appropriate at specific times of day.

Um, and that's a a tool that I expect to have available early this spring.

Now, and the display, we saw children uh riding on them with helmets.

Tactically, there's no enforcement that they have to have a helmet.

So I think people look at it is is somewhat misleading.

And it's it's misleading because helmets.

If you were enforcing it, I can see it.

But by showing uh a picture, people aren't riding the bicycle.

I mean, common sense a person would be, but because it's not enforced, uh, it very few times do I ever see a person, if ever, um on a bicycle with a helmet.

So the I couldn't agree more of absolutely everyone should ride with helmets full stop.

Um I will say, you know, to be sort of as legalistic uh to be legalistic for a second, state law does not require helmet use for people who are over 18, which our terms of service explicitly require you to be 18 or over.

Um one tool, and so you know helmet you helmet requirements can also be kind of an equity barrier, not everyone can afford to buy uh a decent helmet.

Um, especially those folks say on the the low-income program, you know.

I will say another new tool that will be on when we re-launch uh, you know, presuming you know uh we in the city, you know, agree to do so is uh an AI-powered helmet detection tool that you essentially turn on yourself.

It analyzes whether you have a helmet or not, a helmet on or not, and we take kind of a carrot rather than a stick approach.

Uh so you can have a you'll the rider will be presented with uh another rebate opportunity uh if they wear a helmet.

And it's also important you say that the 18 or over, but the facts are minors.

I think children riding they're able to get access.

And and what's scary is they do go in the middle of the road, and it's like the toy.

And you know, and this puts VO and or the rider um liable.

Uh can you explain and I want to talk about uh this program you have about refunding over 130,000 because I look at the opportunity zones, and I do see the majority are from the north side, Skunk City and Brighton.

So if you'd like to talk about that.

Yeah, uh absolutely.

So uh we you know, kind of I looked at uh several metrics, some of which were our internal data, some of which were kind of the city's own demographic data, looked for overlap of high utilization, you know, where people like where people kind of demonstrating the need and the the use already, um, but also the city's kind of internal data relative to household income, relative to household car ownership, uh looking at centro schedules and lines, and you know, looking specifically for places where Centro is uh central service is lacking.

And so that was really the the you know general criteria that went into selecting those zones.

Those are entirely flexible and we're certainly open to having discussions with DPW and this council and and city leadership generally uh about uh the exact kind of location and composition of those zones.

So you said you said that that the the one 1300 went back to riders.

Yep.

How?

So a rider takes a trip they end there, you know, a normal say you're not on any type of membership or anything you're just a casual rider taking a ride.

The sort of normal pricing structure is a $1 on lock fee and a 30 six 36 cents a minute and so you're that rider you take your ride you end your trip in an opportun in one of the opportunity zones that's all GPS based and you are just automatically refunded that dollar unlock fee.

Right there and there oh I see and so there's nothing the rider has to do.

Oh okay okay now before you get too too far away from the racks so when when when the bikes are lifting the city racks wherever they are so can somebody use that grab that bike and continue using it.

Exactly okay but then how do you know if the mileage left there based on the charge is enough to get you to where you're going to that make sense I'm sorry I'm not sure so so they these are batteries right they're charged.

So when they're fully charged how many miles sure so you're asking if the vehicles have kind of the enough battery to get you to where you're gonna to the next ride.

Absolutely so um there's a few things so in the in the the app that you use to locate the vehicle unlock the vehicle on your phone uh when you sort of select a vehicle it tells you straight away what the both the charge level and the kind of uh general mileage left like the mileage available they can see that when it's exactly okay and then if if bat if a battery gets below if if it's uh down to five percent it won't let you rent it and yeah it just it sort of disappears from that okay um and it is sort of an internal metric that we hold and and that Paul is responsible for executing is we specifically for charge levels because chart batteries running running out of battery is actually one of the top probably three maybe even two drivers of a vehicle kind of being left in a place it shouldn't be a a rider just doesn't really have much of an option other than to walk away from it at that point but we try to hold we hold ourselves to a very strict like battery swap every 10 rides.

So how many miles does he uh a full battery will get you and of course you know they colder weather hilly uh will will kind of affect this but about 45 miles on a full charge and kind of uh similar to that question does um does the bikes give notice when someone's uh money is running out um that's a a great question um I don't believe the bike itself does uh but in the app you'll get like a pop-up notice in your in the app.

Oh so okay so if my money runs out while I'm riding does the bike just halt yeah so it does it actually does give a verbal notice if you yeah if you are on a credit card you know then that's not an issue but if you are on a debit card and you are using up the last of your money it will give a notice it will a verbal notice it will the bike will talk to you and say uh you're running low on funds uh stop your ride within the next five I forget you know whatever I guess it depends how much money's left uh stop your ride within the next five minutes say and then it will say one more time uh you're out of funds and then it will turn off okay so that's my issue um and I guess it's more like the rider's issue um but I witnessed a accident nearly accident I should say um where a bike seemingly just stopped there was two riders one of the bikes just stopped the other rider crashed into that individual both bikes and riders are down and a bus is is about to you know good thing the bus was able to stop but it was very traumatic for myself sure so I can only imagine what happened with them.

So I don't know if there's like you said that does the bike start to slow down at some it it never comes to a full stop it never uh like applies the brakes what happens is the motor cuts off so if you're going let's say you're going 10 miles an hour it will just the motor will stop going so then you will glide however far you know unless you were to actually hit the brakes.

I think the the main step we're taking to try to avoid that exact scenario is uh is to you know, kind of batch payments for riders and take like a kind of a you know, we obviously want to balance reasonableness with preparedness, I suppose, but taking a decent size pre-authorization to make sure that you know, if uh that rider is gonna take a ride that might turn out to be 550 and fair that they have more than say like six dollars on there, we we'll take a pre-authorization of like 20 dollars instead, which is very far outside the kind of median uh charge to just give people a little breathing room there.

So that's the reason why I asked about the impacts part.

That's why I asked about that.

But I just wanted to clarify a little bit what um uh President Piniago has stated.

So if I return my bike to a rack, when I end it, it cuts off the funding, correct?

Exactly.

Okay, so no one else can just go and pick it up and start to use it from where I left off if I left the money on available.

Exactly.

There if that's exactly right.

And if we acknowledge that, you know, and if your vehicle is misparked and the virtual parking coach is going and you just ignore the instructions, the vehicle your meter will still run because we want to impose a bit of a financial penalty.

Um however, there is to avoid the scenario where someone can just come and take it, uh, that does cut off after a I think 20 minutes of I uh of it being idle.

And so then the the ride will turn itself off, so someone can't just come and pick it up and ride it free at that point.

So now you open it up to something else.

As far as the penalties, how many um complaints have you received of people challenging charges?

I I'd have I'll have to follow up with you on that.

I I don't have that at the top of my head.

We it's always like us, you know, kind of a low single digit percent, but I'll have to get you the specific number.

Counselor.

Yeah, I have a couple questions.

Um obviously these bikes have been invaluable in our city.

A lot of people that don't have transportation rely on these to get to work.

And like you said, grocery stores and whatnot.

Um some of the concerns I have.

Um I've talked to a couple people whose cars have been hit by these bikes.

They've called VO, and VO said that's not our responsibility.

So who exactly is responsible for the damage done to other people's cars when somebody hits those with the bikes?

Uh the rider.

And how do they find out who the rider is if they take off?

Sure.

We um, you know, these vehicles are essentially walking data machines.

And you know, we have very granular data as to you know, the ride path of each vehicle.

The GPS that's on board pings into the ether every four seconds, I believe.

And so we have extremely granular data uh about the ride path of each vehicle.

Of course, you know, and if uh a person, you know, say the person who owns the car is able to say I was at this place at on this day at this time, we can identify every ride path that like within meters uh with every ride path that kind of interacted with that location.

And uh we can and we do require, I had a conversation with a Syracuse resident this year, communicated with council about it on this very issue.

Uh we are legally required.

This is not a company policy.

We are legally required to have a subpoena to turn that data over any time it's personally identifiable uh to a singular person.

Uh we are legally required to have a subpoena to turn it over to SPD, for example, and we are very happy to do so.

We even have a template form we will provide to SPD to send back to us for the subpoena.

Um and you know, we recommend that the owner of the car in this scenario work with SPD uh with the data we can provide uh in that scenario.

Okay, so just I'll sum it up for people that are listening.

So you're saying that that person has to reach out to SPD, ask for a subpoena to get the records from you guys.

That's the way the law is okay.

All right, I just wanted to make sure I was clear on that.

Um the other question I think you sort of touched on it is having more bike racks accessible so that bikes aren't just thrown all over people's lawns because that's the biggest complaint we get, right?

Absolutely.

And um, I know our president here had one sitting in front of her house for four days.

So um there is still that issue um of them not getting picked up timely.

Um and you know, I hope that we can work on on that going forward.

Absolutely more to be done there.

We you know would love to have conversations with DPW about opportunities to to deploy more racks.

Um absolutely.

Okay.

Is there any chance these racks could do they have the potential to to um to recharge?

Um that's a sort of short answer, yes, it's possible.

Long answer is it's a much bigger process because of the requirement to sort of tie into the grid.

Um, and also, you know, we one of the the most labor consuming tasks we have are swappable batteries.

Um, but it is also a benefit to have swappable batteries where our team can just pop new ones in.

And so we are highly flexible in terms of of charging.

Um it's it's absolutely an opportunity we we'd love to pursue, but it just I don't I want to from my perspective, it would not be a fast deployment.

Something to look forward to.

Exactly.

Okay, well one more question I have.

Um you said that uh you only are renting to certain people, but we clearly see young children on bikes.

So do you not require them to scan their picture before they get on the bike?

We we don't.

Um the there are places like California where it's a state law, um, and so we do where it's a legally required.

Um it's not in New York State.

Um when you are a new customer, you have to agree to our terms of service, which is a in the eyes of the law as a binding contract.

And within that terms of service, you're stipulating that you're 18.

And so by our view, anyone who does that under 18 is essentially committing fraud.

I think the challenge that we have also seen in market in say our California markets is you know, a parent who is say willing to let their kid use their credit card to pay for the trips, is also willing to let their kid use their ID to create an account.

So I understand that, but how hard is it to add that to the app here in Syracuse so that we can have make sure our kids are safe?

It's it's it's a it's absolutely a possibility.

You know, there are equity implications for that, though.

A lot of low-income folks, you know, who may be unbanked, like are also very likely to be without ID.

And so uh that's the challenge that you run into is that it inadvertently becomes exclusionary, and the people the kids who are really motivated to use it are going to use it.

Or we're just going to push them to and you know uh we're just going to push them to to buy a you know rickety too fast piece of junk from Amazon for 75 bucks.

That's gonna have an unsafe battery and also go 30 miles an hour instead of 15.

So there it's technically possible, there are some very real trade-offs to it.

Are you able to somehow um implement a in your system um rides for teens where you could have them as riders, maybe you know, 14 to 18 or 17 where they do have to identify themselves, but the system then triggers the bike to only go so so much speed.

That's a great question.

Um yes, that's technically possible.

We'd need a change in state law first.

Um the industry's insurance market, you know, the city requires us to carry general liability protection and and the like.

The industry's insurance market has to actually create a product to make that to make us insurable under that scenario.

This is something we're actually you know, working through with uh the city of Denver uh now.

Denver has the same interest.

Uh we're putting a you know at best probably a two-year time horizon on it.

Um but yeah, it is it is technically possible.

There are just some pretty significant roadblocks, you know, in the way.

So you you mentioned when you discuss the access program that we have seen growth, and uh, but there's still a lot to do.

Absolutely.

So where is your biggest challenge right now?

So I mean there's there's a few challenges um that you know, kind of all that always exist is you know, we it is you know it is really required to keep the the business viable that we verify people, um you know, verify that they meet the whether it be income requirements or other public benefit requirements um and for to receive the the rides at such a steep discount.

Um and you know, providing that credential is always it's not a roadblock per se, but it's a point of friction that can you know that can prevent people from from engaging.

Um certainly, you know, we try our best with language support, but of course, if you're not a uh you know, if if you don't sort of speak English as a primary language, that can make it a challenge.

Our app does uh that's that I you know our website is translated to Spanish and Chinese, our app, whatever your background settings on your phone, the language background setting on your phone, your the app kind of automatically translates to it.

So we do provide language support, but just like anything else.

It's you know, I don't want to pretend that it's easy, yeah, that that it's sort of no no different.

Um question on that.

Yeah, sure.

Could we add Arabic to the to the so the the phone application will already support Arabic if you're if your phone itself is set to Arabic?

So it's it's literally whatever language your phone is.

Exactly.

Yeah, thank you.

Of course.

Um and then you know, uh just kind of knowledge about the program.

There's always marketing.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so, and that's obviously that's the pla, you know, the place where we we individually can make the biggest difference.

Something you know that we are committing to for this coming year, is to um and you know, we'll very much need the city's partnership on this to sort of act help us be a convener, uh, but is to establish a you know an equity working group of sorts uh that will gather regional stakeholders to understand, you know, for how to help us understand better where the blockers are, and you know, to make sure that we're reaching folks kind of where they exist in their lives, whether it's you know, publicly supported housing, whether it's you know, kind of any other resource that like will uh in essence automatically qualify someone for the program is to get information into the hands of folks kind of in the flow of their daily life, and whether that be yeah, libraries, uh public housing, kind of you name it.

You have like a one sheet of information over the program.

Yeah, we could post when we send the deck on, we'll send that as well.

Okay.

If you don't mind me stepping in, this is like something that's been a big uh kind of passion of mine from the beginning when I we started, and I saw boy, I really thought there'd be more uh non-English speakers using it than there was.

So um I'm friends with Nicole Watt from Hope Speak uh, and I uh I I said, Hey, can you can you help me with this?

So uh you know, every summer, but this is this summer as well.

Um she put on a little event on the north side.

I came.

Oh, we'd be there.

I said, okay, yeah, there you go.

I I I said, can you just help me get I want somebody who speaks the language to teach the people that speak that language how to use because I think the the big barrier is not even the language, like you said, you can you can get it in your language.

It's it's that people don't realize it's for them.

That's the biggest they just think like that's something else, that's not for me.

So I was like, I need somebody from the community.

So yeah, we got uh I think it was nine languages.

She got people to speak who spoke nine different languages.

We were there all day long, and though I taught those people how to teach people to use the scooters, and then I had them teach people in their own language.

And I do think you're seeing um if you if you looked at the uh um the access program, the the low income program, the highest usage of a lot of them was north side, where we did that.

So I do think it had some payoff.

So that was something that I was I was really happy about.

Excellent.

Excellent.

That's good.

I just want to follow up because we have the most diversity on the north side, multiple languages.

And many people um where their native land is probably survived on on bikes.

So that's the highest percentage based on your usage.

Um so and it is now.

I also wanted to point out ask uh about the safety of the bikes.

We discussed this yesterday.

Uh, how many times a day are they maintained when uh a bike is damaged in any way, a light is out.

How do we constantly maintain and where do we uh have a uh a depot I can I wouldn't say the specific address, but if you want to talk about like in general, yeah, uh in the middle of the city, we have a warehouse.

I employ uh five to six different mechanics at any different time.

Uh the head mechanic for uh uh the entire Northeast is uh located in Syracuse.

So he's worked his way up from he was a driver of battery swapper, worked his way up to mechanic that had mechanic in Syracuse and that had mechanic for the whole company.

So we've seen some some success there.

We have very good mechanics.

Um so there's there's three ways, four ways that we get to scooters.

Um one, each scooter has a self-diagnostic system, kind of like a check engine light in a car.

So it will uh detect itself um and alert us when there are problems.

So it puts itself, we call it error mode.

It makes it so it it's unrentable to the the customers.

It will not show up on the app, you can't run it.

Uh, and then it will flag itself for us as saying, come get me immediately, something's broke, we bring it in and uh we we give it a full quality check and uh fix it.

But if you what if you get a flat while you're using it?

So they the our tires have a uh a liquid inside them that will fill in um automatically.

Yeah, yeah.

It just once it's pierced inside there's a liquid that will kind of fill in that gap.

So it's it's still usable for a little bit.

Um but yeah, that's that's honestly probably the thing that we bring in scooters for most.

And that's one of the error state things that will will get ticked off to police team.

It does alert you uh about brake failure, because I saw an incident two years ago where a gentleman ran through the light and he did tell me uh his brakes failed at that moment.

Is there any warning light on that where brakes need to be service?

Yeah, if it if it won't work, then it will it won't let you run it if it if it detects it.

Um it's not a hundred percent.

So there are other ways we do it.

Um also if a customer calls our line and says, hey, any any problem, it could be anything, uh the headlight was out, you know, they will put that in air and then they will alert us and we'll go pick it up.

Um we also do a just a um we we like systematically bring in every scooter.

So every week we'll bring in 10 scooters until we get through the whole fleet and then start again.

So we just you know, they they come in um, you know, even if there's nothing wrong with them, just for a quality check.

Um, and then at the beginning and ever end of every year, this is what I'm doing all winter, uh, is just we bring in every scooter, we quality check every scooter, we fix everything.

Uh one thing I'm really excited about, we're adding baskets onto every scooter now.

So that there'll be a basket with you that goes grocery shipping.

Um yeah, uh all the CDs.

So it's uh another I was gonna mention about the lithium batteries.

Talk about the batteries and how it's secured and what do you do prevent from a fire?

Sure.

And I'll I'll answer that question.

I I think one thing I just wanted to add to the answer to the previous question.

The other thing we do is every time we touch a vehicle for any reason, battery swap requested retrieval, just like using the automated tip over detection and and writing a tip over.

There's a kind of a a yeah, what was it, four steps, five steps, five steps?

Five steps, excuse me.

I never can remember it, but it's like five S we call it, um, where uh kind of field check that that the technician does.

They check the brakes, they check the throttle, they they check the sort of core like safety functions of the vehicle um in on every touch.

And so given the frequency with which we swap batteries, pick up tipped over vehicles, uh that field check is happening typically multiple times per week uh and sometimes multiple times per day, given on on the highest ridership days, uh on you know, essentially all vehicles in the market.

Um and then uh counselor uh Nave um on uh par suppression.

So you know, this is certainly uh an evolving uh kind of practice area for us.

You know, we do operate in New York City FDNY is really like the the you know national leader on this issue, and so we're kind of constantly evolving our tactics and and our our best practices hand in glove with with FDNY.

Um, you know, and so the I think the the headlines are that we um you know first and foremost, uh the risk to any battery are damaged batteries.

And so every time a battery is uh you know brought to the warehouse for charging purposes, it is inspected um you know by the team to make sure there's there's no evidence of corrosion, of damage, of impact, anything that could damage the battery because that is is truly where the risk exists.

Um we have uh all you know charging uh practices are are you know monitored both by camera and by human.

Um again, because uh kind of a stored battery that's not being charged is is essentially you know no risk.

Uh the batteries themselves are UL certified uh on you know, have it on several different certifications, both the at the cell uh at the cell level at the entire battery level and the battery vehicle together as an electrical system, all have separate UL certifications.

Um and then of course, you know, we take take precautions where if we do identify a damaged battery, uh we have a safe storage uh mechanism uh for damaged batteries.

Um, but even we can, you know, uh outfits like auto zone and and kind of auto auto parts stores will will often recycle batteries as well.

So those are are really the the headlines and and obviously uh all of that said, you know, with the warehouse was you know, we typically have uh local officials show up for inspections.

When we first did the warehouse, the electrical work was you know done by a licensed professional um and and done in a way that that met you know that meets city code in it.

Paul, we can you talk a little bit about the cell block system also that we use?

Sure.

Um I just want to give us a time check.

We've got five more minutes at the committee meeting.

Yeah, you want me to keep going or should I should we move on?

President can leave, but I she asked me to ask questions and we get done.

Okay.

Um I'll just really quickly cell block is it's it's a very interesting uh material.

Um we have a fireproof barrel.

If we have a damaged battery, we put the the battery in the fireproof barrel, and then we cover it with something called cell block, which is a uh a white uh almost kind of powder.

And if the battery were to catch fire, it turns into almost like a glass bubble closing in the fire and shutting it off and putting out the fire.

Um and we have that in our uh charging station itself, it's surrounded by that.

And uh there's uh a barrel for every damaged battery.

So uh it's pretty interesting stuff actually.

Okay.

So uh President Penny Agri had a question.

Are we able to identify users not continually or are continually breaking the rules?

And what are the consequences when you have uh problem writers who just break the rules?

Yeah, do you have the can we go back uh a few slides?

I'll take it.

Um so I I put together this slide here.

Uh so you can see we had a significant increase.

And you know, we did have more rides, so more opportunities for for bad apples to behave poorly.

Uh we had a 34% increase in rides, I believe it was year over year, but we had a 51% increase in violations issued.

So we stayed ahead of that curve.

Um our violation schedule offers two warnings to riders.

Uh and we look at that as an opportunity, obviously, to sort of positively engage, positively change behavior, um, and uh uh you know, also not drive people away because certainly when you start finding people money, there's a pretty decent chance they're gonna stop riding with you.

Um, which for the real jerks out there is okay.

We don't want the the worst apples on our our system.

Yeah, but we also don't want to just send them all like at the first accidental in lar most cases uh lapse in behavior.

We don't want to just send them into the arms of a car, essentially.

Um and so uh if you get to a third fine, you start getting you start having to pay us money before you can ride again.

And if you get a fourth fine, that's where the suspension kicks in.

Uh you uh have to take uh kind of a quiz demonstrating you are aware of the rules of the city uh coupled with your fine before you can ride again.

So we we suspended uh almost 200 people uh via the the quiz mechanism last year, which again was a significant increase over the year prior.

Uh any of my colleagues have any other questions?

Uh just have a little uh maybe you can get a little PR plug.

Are you able to just state um the uh where would people go to um report the bikes?

Like what's the yeah, absolutely.

So if there's a a vehicle out that you want us to come pick up, you can email hello at VORIde.com uh is the easiest way to do it.

All of our vehicles have our company contact information right on them.

Um and even if you aren't ever a rider, you you can do it in the app, you can just send an email.

Uh we have an 855 phone number that I never can remember, but is also on the bike uh itself.

So at the end of the day, when it's on property, uh it's the responsibility of the rider, not the resonance.

Understood.

And then I think like we said yesterday, we have to promote this very much so.

So people know, and I think an advertising blitz would be very helpful to have a number and that uh and as we go along with this program, uh, I think we're gonna do uh hopefully we'll have less issues and that uh and things will uh go through for this coming year.

Uh absolutely I I will say we've had on a sort of a per ride basis, we've we have seen a year over year, like me for many years now, continuing reduction uh of total you know complaints per ride, essentially.

Right um, you know, but you're absolutely right, it is vias and our riders' responsibility to to kind of behave like good neighbors.

Um, a lot of opportunities uh to really constructively engage.

I would absolutely ask the city's partnership on kind of getting the word out through the city's social channels and kind of megaphone that it possesses.

Like we'd love to you know put a lot of this information out there and completely agree with you.

Wow.

I'm sorry, I have one more question.

Um double rides, double riders.

Yeah, is that allowable?

It's no, it's uh against the we we are launching a vehicle uh that's actually meant for two people.

Um that is uh really I think a great tool, say for folks who have limited visibility, uh may not ever you know be appropriate or safe for them to drive, but they can certainly ride.

Um save that vehicle, no, it is not allowed.

Um, and so uh absolutely something a rider can get you know uh receive a violation for.

Well, I want to thank you for taking the time uh for coming here and speaking to us, my fellow counselors.

I thank you, and for our guests are here, thank you.

Uh I will now ask for an adjournment.

Second.

So okay, thank you.

Thank you all very much, counselors.

Thanks.