Veo Mobility bikes and scooters
Veo Mobility, a bike and scooter rental company, was founded in Oakland in 2017 and has been renting bicycles and scooters in the Town since 2021. But many Oakland residents may not be aware of its five-year-old Veo Access program, which allows low-income people to rent its scooters for short rides for free.
Justin Holmes, the company’s vice president of revenue, says the company has not seen the number of rides rise over the last year, but “both distance and duration of Access rides are up more than 10% year over year.”
Even those who don’t qualify for Veo Access may find the rentals an affordable transit option. Regular rentals involve a $1 fee to unlock an Astro scooter or Cosmo bike and cost $0.43 per minute after that.
Students on financial aid, welfare recipients, AARP members, and active-duty military personnel or veterans are eligible to apply to the Veo Access program, which is 50% off all trip costs, including the $1 unlock fee for regular riders. A previous version of the program offered the first 30 minutes for free in Oakland, as it still does in other cities (Denver’s Veo actually offers a free hour), but Holmes told us they changed the program a couple of years ago in consultation with the city.
Holmes said half of all Veo’s rides come through the Access program and that 1,000 unique riders in Oakland are already taking advantage of it. “Access users take twice as many rides as standard fare riders, on average,” he said.
He said once people apply with the required documentation, they can be approved in as little as a half hour.
A Veo survey found that half of its riders thought it was an affordable transit option, while 22% said it was not. Credit: Veo
According to Veo, the average scooter ride in its East Bay service area, which also includes Albany, Berkeley, and Emeryville, is about 1.5 miles, and the most popular places to start or end a ride in Oakland are Oakland’s BART stations.
Oakland residents who’ve used Veo Access told The Oaklandside it’s made a difference in how they get around — and in their wallets.
A 2025 Veo user survey found that 59% of respondents made less than $50,000 a year. Half of respondents described Veo as an “affordable way to get around.” The report found that 47% of people who rode a Veo scooter used it either to get home or to work or school. Nearly half of those surveyed, or 46%, were between 18 and 24 years of age, and another quarter of respondents were between 25 and 34 years old.
The report highlighted the need for bike infrastructure in cities with Veo devices. Of the people who end up riding a Veo bike or scooter on the sidewalk, which is illegal in Oakland, half of respondents said they did it because it felt “unsafe or uncomfortable” to ride on the street and 47% because “there is no bike lane available.”