ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Why are scooters and e-bikes left in unusual places throughout the city?

Many street corners across Rochester have VEO scooters and e-bikes. To ride them, scan a QR code. They cost a dollar to unlock and about 35 cents per minute you ride.

From July until now, people in Rochester have taken 100,000 rides on VEO e-bikes and scooters and viewers have sent in questions about them.

Here’s one from John: “I see a lot of these scooters all over the city just deserted. Laying everywhere. How is it possible for these scooters to be deserted like this?”

Joe Bott, the policy and partnerships manager with VEO, has answers.

“We utilize a swappable battery, so we don’t have to physically remove our devices, you know, from the streets and take them back to be charged somewhere else,” Bott said.

Each scooter and e-bike has a GPS in it. VEO has local staff who make daily rounds to replace the batteries.

“The nice part about that is that the devices are on the street and accessible all the time when people need them. They don’t have to kind of guess about when our maintenance routines and schedules will be,” Bott said.

What happens when one winds up in a place it shouldn’t be? Bott says there’s a team of local technicians working around the clock.

“So if we get a call from the city that says hey there’s a device here and it shouldn’t be here, you know our team will be. Our customer service team will notify our local team, and the local team will go and retrieve it,” Bott said.

News10NBC’s Emily Putnam: “Why not have some kind of bike rack or scooter rack?”

Bott: “Just convenience. It opens up and gives the flexibility and encourages people to use it. You know and I think there’s a number of reasons why it makes sense to have that sort of free-floating opportunity to go door to door.”

If you have a concern about a scooter or an e-bike, you can report it directly to the company. Each device has a customer service phone number on it, as well as a unique number identifying that particular device. You can also email VEO customer service at hello@veoride.com.

If you have a question you’d like answered, send me an email to goodquestion@whec.com.