We don’t sell oTo.
We move it.
Segway sold its machines to anyone. oTo is designed specifically for guided group tours, and it isn’t sold as a personal transportation device. Our plan: every machine stays in one managed fleet, and the fleet moves with the seasons to wherever the tours are.
Where things stand: today’s tours run on our HumanOnaStick Segway fleet in Minneapolis and St. Paul. oTo is in development, so this page describes what we are designing and our goals.
The goal: 10,000 machines, distributed with the seasons.
Tour seasons are short and they don’t line up. Minneapolis rides from spring to fall, while warm-weather cities peak in winter. Instead of every tour operator buying machines that sit idle half the year, oTo machines move between markets as the seasons change, so each machine keeps working.
- 10,000Machines in one oTo fleet
- 150Markets in the United States
- 250Markets worldwide
- SeasonalMachines follow the tourist season from market to market
These numbers are long-term goals, not today’s fleet.
We didn’t invent the Segway. We invented what it was actually for.
The Segway PT was sold as a product for everyone to own, which left each buyer with the price, storage, charging, maintenance and legal questions. A guided tour turned all of that into a memorable few hours. After more than two decades of tours, the clearest signal we’ve seen is that people want to try it far more than they want to own it. The experience won. Ownership didn’t.
Keeping the fleet is how we keep it safe.
Control of safety
Every rider is trained and coached the same way, and every machine is maintained, updated and monitored by us. Sold machines leave that system.
Machines that keep working
A machine sold to one operator sits idle in its off-season. In our fleet it moves to a market that is in season.
Protecting our IP
Our patent-pending systems stay inside our fleet, not in machines anyone can buy and take apart.
One fleet, run as one system.
oTo-Ports are the city hubs
Each market is built around an oTo-Port: the place riders train, meet their guide and set off, and where machines are kept and looked after.
Machines go where the season is
Fleet planning is designed to send machines to markets heading into their busy months, and away from markets heading into winter.
The same standards everywhere
The same training, maintenance and operating procedures in every city, while each destination keeps its own stories and personality.
Built to be serviced in the field
Machines are designed for long commercial service, with modular parts such as swappable batteries, so a machine doesn’t have to leave the fleet to be repaired.
One customer, many cities
Shared booking and customer history, so a rider’s experience and loyalty rewards can follow them from one city to the next.
Every machine accounted for
Each machine is designed to report its location and health, so maintenance can be planned instead of discovered.
A machine that keeps working.
Tours come first
The core of the business is a guided, high-value tour. Keeping machines in season means more tours for each machine each year.
Stores and partners
oTo-Ports, merchandise and partnerships with local attractions and businesses add to what each tour brings in, and bring visitor spending into the community.
Groups and repeat riders
Corporate groups have been a steady part of our tours since 2003, and loyal riders are recognized and rewarded when they come back.
Prove it at home, then expand market by market.
We’ve run guided tours here since 2003, so the Twin Cities come first. From there the plan is to open new markets, run by our company or with vetted local partners, with the machines staying in the managed fleet either way.
Timing depends on engineering validation, financing, regulatory review, manufacturing readiness and operating pilots. We’ll share dates as they’re confirmed.
We are control freaks about safety, and that is by design. Aviation became today’s airline industry through constant improvement of one total operating system. We are building the same for guided tours: a forever-improving safety model, with customer awareness and risk at its center, that independent operators can’t achieve on their own.
It takes system controls that work at scale: machine learning and physical AI, with humans always in the loop, building a better way to make sidewalks safe again.