Thieves used to break into as many as five cars a week in the parking garage at Los Angeles’ Union Station.
Then the Metropolitan Transportation Authority came up with a simple solution: They put a security officer on a Segway Human Transporter.
“The first day that one of the security officers was on the device was pretty much the last day there was a break-in,” said Robin Blair, a transportation planning manager for the MTA, which owns about 19 Segways.
Although the electric, self-balancing Segway scooter never quite caught on with commuters the way its backers had predicted five years ago, the gizmo has found a growing market among law-enforcement agencies, with more than 100 departments around the world now signed on as customers and many others testing the device.
The niche market, coupled with a burst of interest from Europeans struggling with gas prices, have breathed new life into the Segway.
Segway Inc. president and chief executive James Norrod, hoping to parlay the growth into a payday for the original investors in the scooter, has made grooming the company for an initial public offering in the next few years a priority.
Norrod said he was brought in as CEO last year for just that purpose by Segway’s principal investors, Credit Suisse Group and the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, best known for its early investment in Google Inc.
Gauging Segway’s prospects in an IPO is difficult because it will not reveal its yearly revenue or whether it is profitable. Norrod will only say that “tens of thousands” of Segways have been sold around the world and that revenue has been growing by at least 50 percent over each of the past few years.
He said high fuel prices have made many potential customers take another look at the Segway, especially in Europe, where gas can be twice as expensive as it is in the U.S.
International sales were only about 5 percent of Segway’s business two years ago but by the end of this year could account for as much as 40 percent, the company said. It also recently set up dealerships in Japan and China.
The company says the Human Transporter gets the equivalent of about 450 miles per gallon, based on the amount of gas it would take to create the electricity needed to run it.
The scooters, which travel as fast as 12.5 mph, also allow an officer on patrol to cover a much greater distance than on foot and to go indoors, onto elevators and other places bigger vehicles can’t.
In other applications, several bomb squads such as those in Ventura County, Calif., and Little Rock, Ark., are using Segways to transport officers in bomb-proof and hazardous-material suits that can weigh as much as 100 pounds.
But despite the enthusiasm among law enforcement and robotics researchers, the interest in the Segway is still a far cry from what its supporters had predicted when it was unveiled, bursting onto the frenzied technology scene with the code name “Ginger.”
After its launch, the Segway found itself on a bumpy road, including a product recall and the departure of three CEOs since 2002. And the device is still expensive even five years later, retailing for about $4,000 to $5,700.
Critics believe Segway’s continued silence regarding its finances is an indication it is still not profitable, especially given the reported $100 million spent developing it.
Mark Witaschek, a partner at the wealth-management firm Harbor Group Inc. in Segway’s hometown of Bedford, N.H., has been following the company closely since his wife was hired to help market the Segway in Europe a few years ago.
He calls it a classic “chicken and egg” situation, saying the Segway will not gain broad appeal until it’s cheaper, but the company won’t be able to cut prices until it is able to produce the scooter on a much larger scale.
