FAYETTEVILLE (KNWA/KFTA) — The new coronavirus isn’t keeping people in Fayetteville away from getting around town via “super sanitized” e-scooters or e-bikes!
The company that provides the rentals, VeoRide, said keeping the items sanitized is a priority and it continues to do business as usual — with the added cleaning.
“We promote our customers to use gloves and wipe down the bikes and scooters, even though we have also wiped down the equipment,” said a VEO (pronounced V-Oh) team member at the Chicago-based company.
Veo offers consumers an alternative to using Uber or public transportation, and that’s one reason the company is open during the pandemic. “It’s a different line of transportation. We encourage people to use the e-bikes or e-scooters as a form of social distancing while moving about town compared to sharing confined spaces with others in a car or bus,” said Veo’s Southeast Regional Manager, who’s based in Fayetteville, Andrew Miles.
He oversees Veo markets in about seven states which includes Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia and Alabama.
“Our own staff is now wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) and we have drastically enhanced disinfecting our company warehouse and operations vehicles — those are the vans we drive around in — which are getting wiped down at least hourly,” said Miles.
“We are disinfecting [bikes and scooters], our local teams have gloves, masks, wipes … we’re doing that all day, everyday,” said Miles, “again, to limit the risk of contagion we are disinfecting [bikes and scooters] during all daily operations.”
There has been a spike in e-bike rentals versus e-scooters, however the scooters just launched in mid-March. Currently the overall ridership data shows people are taking longer e-bike rides.
The decision to stay open was made based upon being part of the solution for society. “If we would have been told our services would be detrimental [due to COVID-19] we would have shut down,” said Miles. “There are changing dynamics and we try to adapt ahead of the curve. Again, if the government said ‘lock down’ we would.”
Veo Ride company statement, in part:
Our Veo team is keeping safe using disposable gloves and additional precautionary sanitation measures as we are keeping our e-bikes, and e-scooters thoroughly wiped down with commercial grade disinfectants daily. We also encourage our riders to wipe down our vehicles before and after use, and consider wearing gloves if they choose as an extra measure.We will keep you updated as the Coronavirus situation continues to unfold in our cities. In the meantime, please also feel free to contact our team with any concerns you have at hello@veoride.com
ABOUT VEO RIDE IN FAYETTEVILLE
- Launched September 19, 2018
- Total of 440 bikes as of February 2019; 250 scooters available as of March 17, 2020
- In the first year 8,705 users, more than 85,000 rides, covering 18,000 miles and no injuries
- Fayetteville-University of Arkansas program is number one in e-bike ridership within Veo’s portfolio on mid-size markets in 36 cities in the U.S.
