E-scooters in Southampton: Voi hire, parking zones and where you can ride

E-scooters in Southampton: Voi and the Solent trial

Voi is the only company hiring out e-scooters in Southampton. The city is in the government’s Solent trial area, with Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. According to the Daily Echo, the scheme is a partnership of Southampton City Council, Portsmouth City Council, Hampshire County Council and the Isle of Wight Council within Solent Transport, which named Voi the sole provider of shared e-scooters and e-bikes in the region in June 2024.

Voi launched in Southampton on 18 March 2021 with 50 scooters, as part of Solent Transport’s Future Transport Zone, funded by the Department for Transport, Micromobility Biz reported. The government added Portsmouth and Southampton to its list of trial areas on 31 March 2021, and the national trials that make hire scooters legal run until May 2028.

Voi also hires out e-bikes, unlocked in the same app: the University of Southampton points visitors to “Voi shared e-bikes and e-scooters”.

At 14:55 on Saturday 24 October 2026 the map of Southampton showed about 880 Voi e-scooters: a snapshot, not the fleet size. It shows where they stand and their battery, not prices, zones, parking, hours or e-bikes. The total covers the city itself: early on 25 October, 846 of 850 scooters stood inside the city boundary, from Bassett and Redbridge to Weston and Thornhill, and 4 just over it in West End. None stood in Eastleigh, Chandler’s Ford, Netley or Totton, or at the airport.

How much does a Voi e-scooter cost in Southampton?

We couldn’t find Voi’s current Southampton price on an open official page, so check the Voi app: it shows the unlock fee, the rate per minute and the passes on offer before you start. At the launch in March 2021 Voi charged £1 plus 14p a minute; don’t count on that today.

New to hire scooters? See how to rent an e-scooter.

Are e-scooters legal in Southampton? Licence, rules and fines

Hire scooters are legal because Southampton is in one of England’s 21 trial areas. You need a full or provisional driving licence with category Q, which comes with every UK car, moped and motorcycle licence, and Voi rents only to riders 18 or over. Visitors can use a full EU or EEA licence, or another country’s full car, moped or motorcycle licence if they entered the UK in the last 12 months, but never a foreign provisional one; the app decides which licences it takes.

The national rules are in our guide to e-scooter law in the UK.

A private e-scooter is illegal on Southampton’s roads, pavements and cycle lanes and in its parks. Riding one counts as riding an uninsured motor vehicle: a £300 fixed penalty and 6 points, and the police can seize it, since 29 June 2026 without a warning first if it’s ridden anti-socially. In October 2026 Hampshire police began a new operation against illegal riding across Southampton, the Daily Echo reported.

Where can you ride a Voi in Southampton?

Inside the trial area you may ride on roads, except motorways, and in cycle lanes, never on pavements. The app’s map shows where you may ride and end a ride, and the scooter slows down or stops in go-slow and no-go zones.

When Voi launched in March 2021, it set up slow-riding, no-riding and mandatory parking areas with the council, and “parks and the Common are geofenced as no-go areas initially and kept under review”, Micromobility Biz reported. We couldn’t check today’s zones at an official source: the app has them.

On our map the scooters stay in the city. Totton is to get e-bikes instead: Hampshire County Council and Voi plan about 100 hire e-bikes, with docking stations, in Gosport and Totton, the Daily Echo reported on 2 October 2026.

Where to park a Voi e-scooter in Southampton

“Southampton and Voi operate a Mandatory Parking Zone system,” the University of Southampton’s 2026 festival page explains: you must leave the e-scooter or e-bike in a parking area shown in the app to end your ride.

In May 2026 the Daily Echo reported that the city council, with Voi and money from the Department for Transport, was set to install 16 new bays in the east of the city, among them Melbourne Street (Marine Parade), Burgoyne Road, Manor Farm Road, Merryoak Road, Midanbury Lane, Whitworth Crescent and Wellington Road. On 22 October 2026 the Echo reported that the council was consulting, until 19 November, on another bay in Angel Crescent, Bitterne.

Solent University has Voi parking zones on its East Park Terrace campus, by the Sports Complex. The University of Southampton says many Voi bays are near its Highfield and Boldrewood Innovation campuses. At Southampton Central, use only the designated hire bays (see below).

Can you ride a Voi on campus, at the hospital or in the docks?

Landowners set their own rules. Here is what we could find:

Can you take an e-scooter on a train, ferry or bus?

None of the train and ferry companies we could check lets a hire scooter on board:

• South Western Railway, which runs Southampton Central: e-scooters and e-bikes from official hire schemes, “such as those in Bournemouth and Southampton”, may be used only on station forecourts, to reach or leave the hire bays, and never in station buildings, on platforms or on trains. Private e-scooters aren’t allowed anywhere on railway premises.
• Southern, along the coast towards Brighton: since 1 June 2023 all e-scooters have been banned from its trains and stations.
• Red Funnel to the Isle of Wight: “Electric scooters are not permitted on board or in terminal areas”, which covers carrying, storing and charging them.
• The Hythe ferry across Southampton Water had no scheduled service on 25 October 2026, its website said; the Hythe Pier Company bought the old operator’s assets from the liquidators in June 2026.
• Buses and other trains: we couldn’t check Bluestar’s, Unilink’s, CrossCountry’s or GWR’s own conditions.

Heading to the island or Portsmouth? Voi hires out e-scooters there too: at 14:55 on 24 October 2026 the map showed about 210 on the Isle of Wight and 550 in Portsmouth. See e-scooter hire in the UK for all 21 trial areas.

Did you know?

• Racks from day one. At the launch in March 2021, Voi said Southampton would be one of the first UK cities with its parking racks; 50 scooters, capped at 10 mph, could be hired from 6am to 10pm.
• 3.25 million journeys. Voi said in November 2025 that it had delivered more than 3.25 million journeys in Southampton over four years, the Daily Echo reported.
• A cruise capital. The port’s five cruise terminals welcome around three million passengers a year, ABP says.