oTo-Safe™.
Safety is first.
oTo-Safe is an extension of our 20+ year safety operating system. It is being designed to combine our 10-point GlideWise™ training and coaching with AI customer tracking and a predictive autopilot, built into every part of the business: the machines, employee training, and a company culture where safety comes first.
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.
Safety in every layer of the tour.
GlideWise™ training
Our 10-point training and coaching checks that every rider is ready before the tour starts.
AI customer tracking
Edge computing is designed to follow each ride as it happens, so problems can be spotted early.
Predictive autopilot
Because the machine knows the route, it is designed to anticipate turns, hills, crosswalks and traffic.
SwarmNav™ group intelligence
Machines in a group are designed to share what they sense, keeping the whole group safe together.
Haptic and lighting warnings
Vibrations and lights are designed to alert riders and make the group visible to everyone around it.
Humans in the loop
Professional guides stay in charge, with a ride-data black box behind every tour. Technology supports them; it doesn’t take away their authority to slow, re-order, retrain or stop a rider.
A safe “no” is part of the product.
Our tours already follow a careful sequence, and we’re building oTo-Safe around it. Someone who isn’t ready doesn’t go onto the public route: they get more training, an alternate experience, or a refund according to our policy.
Sign up
An online form explains the release, how the machines work, and what to expect.
Check in
In the store, we confirm who you are and get you settled, and introduce what happens next.
First steps with a guide
A guide stands within reach as you learn to move, stop, turn and step off.
Training and gear
A training video, your questions answered, and gear fitted and checked.
Practice
Supervised practice as a group, usually 10–25 minutes, until you and your guide agree you’re ready.
The tour
Your guide leads the route, with the pace, spacing and stops managed for the whole group.
Afterward
Your feedback, photos and scores, and what you learned goes toward making the next tour better.
The problems we’ve seen, by name.
More than two decades of guided tours have shown us where riders actually get into trouble. Those situations, not lab tests alone, are what oTo-Safe is being designed to detect, prevent and coach.
Wheel clipping
Knowing where the wheels are, and warning a rider before they touch something.
Mounting and stepping off
The moments when a new rider is least steady.
Distraction
Noticing when a rider has stopped paying attention.
Formation and following distance
Weaving out of line, or riding too close to the rider ahead.
Speed and showing off
Going too fast, jackrabbit starts, sudden stops and sharp turns near other people.
Sharing the path
Sidewalks, bike paths and intersections, and being a good neighbor on them.
Curbs, bumps and hills
Short curbs, breakovers and inclines, and the right way to ride them.
When something does go wrong
A clear, practiced response, and an accurate record of what happened.
We aren’t promising a zero-risk machine. What we can say is that this design aims to reduce preventable risk by controlling what unmanaged scooters and bikes leave to chance: who rides, how they’re trained, where they ride, how fast they go, how far apart they ride, how many guides are with them, and what the system learns from earlier rides.
A record insurers can measure.
- 23Years of Segway tours in Minneapolis and St. Paul
- 1MMiles ridden on our tours
- 100,000+Documented riders, mostly first-time riders
- ≤6:1Riders per guide
These are company figures from our HumanOnaStick Segway tours. Our goal for oTo-Safe is to make risk more measurable and easier to manage, through standardized operations, auditable training, route knowledge, fleet data and incident records. As the system matures, we expect that evidence to support better conversations with insurers.