The Last Mile

We know it’s not a holiday that’s celebrated around the world, but wanted to share some of the Halloween spirit submitted by one of our loyal The Last Mile readers:

Also, the New Hampshire foliage has been spectacular this year. The weather’s been fantastic too. Here’s a recent look outside of HQ:

Stay tuned to the The Last Mile tomorrow. We’ll have some exciting news for those who are on the fence about a Segway PT during the holiday season…

Cheers!

On Sunday, 23rd of September, London officially became a ‘cycling city’ as more than 38,000 bikes descended on the city’s streets as part of Hovis London Freewheel. It was an afternoon of entertainment, picnics, stalls and cycling.

Dubbed as an ‘extraordinary day’, the event stopped traffic along 14km of capital’s roads, turning the city centre into a bike friendly Mecca for Sunday cyclists. After meeting up in specially created hubs across London, cyclists joined together along this central route to form a gigantic bike posse, then headed to St James’s Park for an afternoon of entertainment, picnics and stalls.

Amongst all the bicycles were a number of Segway PT’s, one of them being ridden by the director of Network Rail (UK), another by a representative from the Dutch Railways Group. Since the railways are looking at using the Segway PT as a last mile solution, the management wanted to see for themselves how well a Segway PT would integrate into a busy cycling environment. Having been made wary of receiving negative reaction from the cycling lobbyists, not only did the demonstration prove to be a perfect match, but the cyclist were more than friendly in every instance and even the local bobby’s were seen grinning as the gentlemen rode by - in spite of the Segway PT not being officially allowed on the public roads.

-Allan Poot

Shortly after a successful event in Las Vegas at ASIS, we’re down in New Orleans wrapping up the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) show.

Chip MacDonald was there and sent over some quick tid-bits about how things went:

• We had a 20′ x 20′ island booth #2729
• We had several visits from some of the existing 400 police customers to tell us what a great tool the Segway PT has been for their departments, many who are in the process of acquiring more.
• Many chiefs of cities and universities told us they have just purchased Segway PTs.
• We hosted a reception last night at the Ernst Cafe with several of our existing customers - great New Orleans style food including jambalaya & crawfish étouffée!
• We’ve given hundreds of demos to existing and potential customers (and a few exhibitors who were nice )
• Guests waiting to speak or demo units were entertained by the Bridgeport video and the montage (see below)
• We New Englanders in New Orleans brought the Saints some luck, as they broke into the win column. We all know how the Patriots are doing…

Here’s the montage Chip mentioned:

YouTube Direkt

Similar to ASIS, we had three pieces of collateral there about demonstration, training/implementation, and then the rewards.

Enjoy!

NYC is known for encouraging graphic design that resonates. Ahem:

Combine it with a green message and you might be on to something. While over at NOTCOT, we came across this:

The collective little things add up to a lot when you’re talking a city of 8M+.

NYC’s green campaign.

In addition to using Segway PTs for security, Ferrari is now offering a Segway i2 Ferrari Limited Edition for the true aficionado.  It includes a front bag made of genuine leather!

From the case study about Ferrari using Segway PTs at its HQ in Maranello, Italy:

After completing the evaluation Ferrari decided to obtain six Segway PTs for the security team to use at the Maranello facility, as well as special events like Formula One races and Ferrari’s 60th Anniversary celebration.

Gilger cites a number of reasons for choosing Segway PTs over other options available overseas that didn’t meet Ferrari’s expectations for design or quality. “We appreciate that it is incredibly efficient and almost silent. You can arrive in an area quietly, which sometimes can be an asset,” he said. In addition, security patrols can now make up to four rounds a day using Segway PTs, versus one or two when they were walking. After years of relying on walking and cars for patrolling, the Ferrari security team rediscovered the advantages of being mobile. “The Segway PT is good to use when responding to an alarm, because you don’t have to worry about switching devices – you can just step on and go. You can go anywhere in the company very quickly.”

Read the complete case study here.