After two years of working at e-scooter startup Bird, Corbett decided to take a sabbatical with his wife and two-year-old son.
It was just ahead of that legislation going through that Corbett rejoined the industry, taking a job as Swedish e-scooter startup Voi as regional general manager for the UK, Ireland and Benelux. Even with a government lockdown and winter weather keeping Brits indoors, the usage of its scooters is staying"resilient."
"Because we're a dockless service we can change our vehicle distribution to where the demand is. And right now we don't want to be encouraging anybody to go to a shopping center, to go to a leisure center. So those routes the distribution of those parking locations have moved. What we want to do is encourage people to go to and from hospital, to and from the train station, to supermarket or a vaccination center," he said.
He thinks Voi can pitch itself to city authorities as a way to alleviate strained transport networks. The company is also pumping money into features to encourage safety. Voi users can take a"helmet selfie" to prove they're wearing a helmet and gain loyalty points to later convert into discounted rides — although some users have been trying to trick the AI that determines whether users are in fact wearing a helmet by putting up their hoodie.