Voi in Cambridge: shared micromobility, replacing short car trips at scale
Six million trips. Fifteen million miles. Around 265 tonnes of CO₂e taken out of the city’s transport footprint. That’s the headline of what shared e-scooters and e-bikes have delivered in Cambridge — and it’s the reason the judges named the scheme winner of the 2026 Best Active & Shared Mobility Decarbonisation Award
Published: 16 June 2026
Image: Voi in Cambridge, Courtesy of Matthew Powew Photography
Voi is a shared e-scooter and e-bike operator working with around 100 cities across Europe. We’re proud to be one of the longest-running operators in the UK, and to count Cambridge among our flagship partner cities.
The judges highlighted that Voi’s shared e-scooter and e-bike scheme in Cambridge has delivered millions of low-emission trips that replace short car journeys, cutting an estimated 265 tonnes of CO₂ while improving access and reducing pressure on road space.
What made the project award-winning?
Cambridge isn’t a pilot any more. Since launch, the scheme has become a daily-use part of how people get around — with more than 180,000 trips taken every month on a fleet of around 1,300 vehicles. Internal mode-shift analysis indicates that around 624,000 of those journeys directly replaced trips that would otherwise have been made by private car.
Three things made the difference:
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Designed with the council from day one. Vehicle choice, parking layout, geofencing rules, data-sharing arrangements and service tweaks were shaped together with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority — not bolted on later. That close working relationship is what lets the scheme keep adapting to local priorities, including in a historically sensitive city centre.
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Built for the long haul, not for the launch. Our latest vehicles are designed for repairability and a service life of up to 15 years. Over 95% of batteries stay in circulation through refurbishment and second-life programmes. The longer a vehicle stays on the road, the more passenger-kilometres each gram of manufacturing carbon has to pay back — and the lower the emissions per trip become.
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Operations electrified at the back end. The vans we use to rebalance and recharge run on electricity, drawn largely from renewable sources, so the bit of the system riders don’t see is decarbonised too.
“The trial in Cambridge has clearly demonstrated that innovation and heritage can successfully go hand in hand. Voi’s approach has been thoughtful and responsive, with heritage considerations and other key objectives at the heart of their work.”
Tim Bellamy, Assistant Director — Transport, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority
Measurable carbon impacts
Voi publishes a life-cycle assessment of its vehicles each year, independently reviewed, covering everything from raw materials to end-of-life. The latest figures put our newest e-scooter at around 29g CO₂e per passenger-kilometre — a 77% drop per kilometre since 2019, and meaningfully lower than typical petrol cars, electric cars and most public transport alternatives over short urban distances.
Apply that intensity to actual rider behaviour in Cambridge — 6 million trips, 15 million miles, around 624,000 journeys we’d otherwise have driven — and the picture looks like this:
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Around 265 tonnes of CO₂e avoided to date, on a conservative comparison against private car emissions for equivalent journeys.
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77% reduction in per-kilometre emissions vs our 2019 vehicles, driven by circular vehicle design and longer service life.
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More than 95% of batteries kept in circulation through repair, refurbishment and second-life use.
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Year-on-year savings rising as ridership grows and the older vehicles in the fleet are replaced with our newest, lower-carbon models.
The wider story matters too. Each shared trip is one less private car movement competing for road space, kerbside and air quality in a compact, historic city. The scheme also extends the reach of public transport — a meaningful share of trips are first- or last-mile connections to rail and bus.
What comes next?
Cambridge is the proof point. The next chapter is about scaling what works — and going deeper.
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Growing the e-bike fleet. E-bikes are opening up the scheme to new groups of riders and to longer journeys, and we’re working with the council to expand bike availability across the city and surrounding villages.
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Smarter parking, better streets. We’re investing in machine-learning parking checks, designated bays and behavioural nudges to keep streets tidy and accessible — because trust in how vehicles are parked is what unlocks the next phase of growth.
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Joining up with public transport. Better integration with rail and bus — from physical hub design through to journey planning — turns micromobility from a standalone option into a genuine multimodal layer of the city’s network.
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Sharing the data. We’re working with academic partners and the council on the kind of trip-level evidence base that makes carbon savings auditable, replicable and useful to other authorities thinking about doing the same.
Meet us at Active County in July 2026
Voi is proud to be sponsoring Active County Cambridgeshire in July, and we’d love councils and transport teams to come and see the Cambridge scheme up close. It’s a chance to talk to the team behind the award, walk through the operating model, and see how a shared e-scooter and e-bike scheme can work alongside — not against — a council’s active travel and decarbonisation goals.
If your authority is exploring shared micromobility, or thinking through how to evidence the carbon impact of an existing scheme, please get in touch. We can arrange a demo ride, a data walk-through, or a conversation with the Cambridge team — whichever is most useful.
The event takes place at the Ray Dolby Centre in Cambridge, pictured. Active County Cambridgeshire is organised by Landor LINKS
The Decarbonising Transport Awards offer a powerful opportunity to share learning and celebrate ambition. For authorities seeking change, the message is simple: start with people, work with communities, and think beyond infrastructure alone.
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Decarbonising Transport Awards 2026 Winner
Best Active & Shared Mobility Award: Voi in Cambridge
