Superpedestrian launches e-scooter fleet in Bordeaux, France

Credit: Superpedestrian

Superpedestrian – the Massachusetts-based transportation robotics company – has announced the launch of a fleet of its shared LINK e-scooters in Bordeaux. The forward-looking French city takes a pioneering approach to shared micro-mobility and is a fitting new home for the high-tech vehicle.

Superpedestrian rolled out 100 of its LINK e-scooters in early October 2021 in Bordeaux; the city permit limits all shared e-scooter operators to a maximum of 100 vehicles.  

The service is available 24 hours per day, seven days per week. To rent a scooter, riders simply need to search for Superpedestrian’s LINK app in the Google or Apple app stores.

“I’m delighted to bring Superpedestrian’s superior technology and service to the citizens of Bordeaux,” commented Haya Verwoord Douidri, Vice President of Strategy, Policy and Market Expansion at Superpedestrian. “We opened our first shared fleet in Europe just 12 months ago. Bordeaux marks our sixth country in Europe and our 32nd city on the continent. It’s been an incredible journey so far and I look forward to serving French cities with our safe, accessible and sustainable service.”

Superpedestrian manages its Bordeaux fleet using 100 per cent electric vans, across a deployment area of approximately 30km². This helps to minimise environmental impact, which is important to Superpedestrian as a company that was certified as 100 per cent carbon neutral earlier in 2021.

Superpedestrian is the company behind Pedestrian Defense, a novel technology unveiled in July 2021 that is the first in the world to prevent footpath riding by scooter riders in real-time, rather than just detect it. The system is currently undergoing road-testing across North America and Europe and will arrive in France in 2022.

LINK scooters already feature Superpedestrian’s patented Vehicle Intelligence (VI) system. This network of sensors, microprocessors and artificial intelligence (AI) runs 1,000 vehicle health checks every second during a ride, modifies performance to avoid component failures (such as battery fires), notifies operations teams immediately if it is not upright (tip-over detection) and removes itself from service if it detects any one of 140 safety-critical conditions (including issues with electronics, battery, motor and brakes).

Simply put, VI is like having a full-scooter x-ray continuously, every time users go for a ride. This sets a new benchmark when it comes to shared mobility standards, and is as big a step forward in scooter safety – as the seat belt was for cars.