Portsmouth is buoyed up by the presence of Voi

Portsmouth may be the UK’s only island city, but it is far from isolated when it comes to innovation and creating connections. Along with its sister city, Southampton, Pompey, to use its well-known nickname, jumped on board our Voi scooters in March 2021, with nearly 30,000 riders renegotiating their routes the low carbon way ever since.

A very positive Pompey

Portsmouth is in fact, after London, the most densely populated city in the UK, with a lively university scene, aerospace and defence industry as well as a busy harbour, of course, all squeezed into 10 square miles. And we cover just about every bit of it. This is why it’s not surprising that ‘ease of access’ comes up again and again as a big Pompey positive, when we meet riders to see what they think of our Vois in their city.

Just as Sonny says: “It’s just the accessibility really…it’s just an easy alternative, quite versatile in different areas of the town. It’s always close to, say, the big attractions.” And he is right. In fact for us at Voi, and our riders, the advantage of having a densely populated Portsmouth is that our e-scooters are easy to spot, with coverage from Southsea to Hilsea, and near the Historic Dockyard to all the way over the creek that separates it from the ‘mainland’ as far north as the city’s main Queen Alexandra Hospital.

Pompey is close to parking perfection

Our Portsmouth riders also have one of the highest rates of perfect parking in the UK. With our Parking Photo facility, riders are required to take and submit a photo of their parked scooter after each ride, to show that they have left them upright and not causing an obstruction, and Portsmouth has a 96% compliance rate. One such perfect parker is Isabelle, a student at Portsmouth University who says: “They are all around the city, so you can just pick it up and drop it off when you’re finished. You can sort of see where to park them, it’s not just leaving them randomly in the street.

Nosa knows best

This tidiness and perfect parking is music to Nosa’s ears, our Portsmouth warehouse manager who is rightly proud of all they have achieved in the city. Along with Southampton, these were the first UK cities to install bespoke parking racks with nearly 70 of them Portsmouth to date, spread across the city. Nosa runs his own little island of inspiration at the Voi warehouse, with a team of eight mechanics in total. We couldn’t agree more with Nosa, for whom company loyalty and pride comes naturally:

“What we do here in the warehouse is basically going above and beyond…Any advice I would give to a rider is ‘follow the rules’, be safe and treat the scooters properly because, at the end of the day, it’s for sharing!”

Be safe, e-scooters are for sharing

As the word is now spreading quickly around Portsmouth about how Voi operates, Nosa and his team in the warehouse are the cornerstones of the company’s success in the region. In Nosa’s own words, Voi “goes above and beyond” in its commitment to creating a safe service for all and helping deliver a cleaner city for living.

If you would like to join the Nosa’s family in Portsmouth, see our vacancies here.