The 2020’s pandemic has been an impressive catalyst to bike adoption all around the world, and even more with e-bikes. Sales of privately owned e-bikes have skyrocketed in most countries, with the notable examples of Germany (+43%), Switzerland (+28.5%), the Netherlands (+30%)… and the USA (+145%)!! If most authorities were already aware of the potential …
Continue reading "The massive electrification of public bike-share"
In France, following the National Mobility Convention, the Loi d’Orientation des Mobilités (or LOM, Mobility Orientation Law) has been under discussion from November 2018 until its publication in December 2019. It was aimed to answer four main problems: the lack of mobility solutions in many territories the climatic and environmental emergency, a call to change …
Continue reading "LOM – An analysis of the recommendations for free-floating services in France."
Shared Micromobility gets back on the road bike lanes! I hope you all had a good and restful summer. If you have been on holidays, the industry did not pause during the summer, modifying the landscape and dynamics. Here is my analysis of the main news of the past two months… Micromobility charts Dott and …
Continue reading "Summer 2020. The evolution of the Shared Micromobility landscape"
Some recent acquisition news in the shared micromobility space underlined the current acceleration of the vertical integration among product and service providers (Micromobility Industries recently organised a webinar on this very topic). Building the best vehicle or optimising the operation processes seem not to be enough… let’s try to explain it. Controlling the whole solution …
Continue reading "Vertical integration in micromobility"
MDS is the trend when you talk about data feed standards in shared mobility. But the historical GBFS feed, launched in 2015 by the NABSA, is another important part of the services data management. I took part in the Shared Mobility Data Workshop organised by MobilityData in Paris on December 2019, which goal was to …
Continue reading "The evolution of GBFS"
Africa is quite left behind when it comes to shared micromobility development. The local urban and economical context is making things complex for local entrepreneurs or renowned foreign operators who would like to settle in one of the numerous African mega-cities. As the population is craving for solutions against congestion, some projects have emerged, but …
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I am glad to collaborate with fluctuo for a set of articles to analyse and explain mobility phenomenons. Episode #4: how to build resilient services in a post-pandemic world. Like most every other sector of the economy, shared micromobility must reinvent itself somewhat to adapt to the coming challenges resulting from COVID-19. Operators, software developers, vehicle manufacturers, …
Continue reading "Shared Micromobility, Rebooted"
Updated April 17th For (some) of us, locked down in any country around the globe because of the COVID-19 pandemic, short-time working or simply home-office means that we have a little more free time (if you don’t have children, sorry). For shared mobility and micromobility nerds, it is an opportunity to get, analyse and store …
A few shared micromobility operators chose to maintain a limited-service during the COVID-19 crisis: when public transport in major cities is not the safest mean of transportation, other shared transport options are an absolute necessity to allow healthcare/grocery store/delivery… workers to maintain vital services. Dott is still operating its e-scooter fleets in all the cities …
Continue reading "Operating during the COVID-19 lockdown: Dott in France"
When around 2.6 billion people are required to #StayAtHome around the globe to slow down the COVID-19 propagation, mobility turns into non-mobility. In front of this unprecedented pandemic, shared micromobility operators have to adapt to local regulation and needs, in order to provide the safest and most useful service… or simply to survive the financial …
Continue reading "COVID-19: how shared micromobility operators are reacting?"
I am happy to collaborate with fluctuo for a set of articles to analyse and explain mobility phenomenons highlighted by their products. Episode #1: the lessons from Paris’ transport strike. In December 2019 started one of the largest social movements in France (at least for this decade). Fighting to maintain their specific pension rights, a …
Continue reading "Paris’ transport strike: Potential and limits of shared micromobility services"
Horace Dediu – micromobility expert, founder of Bond and Micromobility Industries – Based in the US Shared micromobility will undergo a few changes this year: Consolidation among some of the providers with acquisitions of smaller players such as that of Scoot taking place. Focus on discovery. As Google maps is currently surfacing Lime, expect deals …
Continue reading "2020 forecast from shared micromobility experts"
Having already bet on Paris’ e-scooter sharing RFP winners in my last article, I am ready to take more risks: today I will develop two ideas on how I see the near future of shared micromobility. This is a good teaser, as I am gathering experts opinions on this very subject for next week publication. …
Continue reading "My 2020 shared micromobility forecast"
Gender equity is a major goal to be achieved in every field of society, including mobility. It is now widely accepted that mobility (and therefore micromobility) is not gender-neutral and that authorities and companies choices have an impact on the travel patterns of women. The numbers Either for bicycles or e-scooters, the majority of users …
Continue reading "The gender gap in shared micromobility"
While reading the news of the footpath ban for e-scooters in Singapore, micromobility specialists saw it as a bad sign: for years, the city-state has been at the cutting edge of the integration of shared mobility services, and all its decisions are therefore scrutinized by the rest of the world. The recent news of a …
Continue reading "Is e-scooter sharing at stake in Asia ?"
On October 16th and 17th took place in Paris the now well-established urban mobility show: Autonomy & The Urban Mobility Summit. Having chosen to focus on professionals only, the event managed to gather more than 8000 attendees from private companies and public authorities. While the show encompasses all the areas of urban mobility, from electric …
Continue reading "A takeaway from Autonomy summit 2019"
As one might imagine, the usage of shared bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters really depend on the place it is available in. Thanks to my friends of fluctuo and their City Dive tool, let’s dive into some European cities… This analysis is based on data from July 22nd to August 20th, a holiday period for all …
Continue reading "Local specificities in shared micromobility usage"
Before my summer break, I give you a recap of some interesting professional shows related to micromobility for the end of 2019. To free your mind, it’s time to book and fill your agenda! Wocomoco There’s a lot happening in the collaborative mobility market. High time for a congress that takes up this trend and …
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The introduction of the MDS by the LA DOT in april 2019 started a war between the Army of Mobility Defenders and the Army for Data Privacy. Why is it all about? First… … what is MDS? Let’s start with a short explanation of what MDS is. From the GitHub page: The Mobility Data Specification …
Continue reading "Micromobility, the forum for mobility data privacy"
Japan has historically been an isolated island: after the first foreigners landed on the island in 1543, real exchanges only were established during the XIXth century. It remains a very conservative and unique culture, which is also true for mobility. Let’s have a look at the situation regarding shared micromobility services there. Bikeshare Softbank is …
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The French mobility engineering consultancy 6-t released last week the first study on shared e-scooter use in France. Even if 13 operators are already present here (12 in Paris only), the impact of these fast growing services are still to be fully understood. It is important to note that the study is based on Lime …
Continue reading "Who are you, e-scooter rider ?"
Most articles relating the city opening to free-floating mobility services are raising fleet caps as a must, or a natural rule, in order to control the wild packs of scooter and bicycles. What are the consequences? Cities are most of the time providing licenses to operate with a regular fleet cap. The most recent examples …
Continue reading "About fleet caps."
By Akash Gupta, founder and CEO of Mobycy. It is the tipping point for shared mobility in India. The paradigm shift is propelled by tectonic developments in the present times, including the rise of young population demographics, India’s transition to a mobile-first economy, and the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem covering leaps and bounds to solve the …
Continue reading "Moving Together: The Rise of Shared and Electric Mobility in India"
As the national Loi d’Orientation des Mobilités (LOM), long-awaited to clarify the usage rules of E-scooters and free-floating regulations, is getting behind schedule, it is getting complicated for French cities to wait for it. On March 21st, Paris city council unveiled a new set of rules (which still have to be voted): after a first “good conduct chart” …
Continue reading "A new free-floating legislation in Paris"
The past few months have flourished with news of dockless bike-share operators getting into financial troubles: from Gobee’s bankruptcy in spring 2018, to oBike’s one in summer and ofo’s coming one. Mobike, the least damaged pioneer, is also choosing to stop expansion and focus on operations profitability. Even if the ratio vehicle cost/average trip cost …
Continue reading "Why Quality of Service is central for shared-mobility operators?"
The city of Madrid announced yesterday that they are granting a permit to… 18 operators (!!!) for their e-scooter sharing program. You thought that you have too many in Brussels or Paris with 7? Here is the long list, all these companies have now 2 months to launch in the Spanish capital: Acciona, Eskay, Voi, …
Continue reading "You thought that 6 or 7 e-scooter operators was a lot. Here comes Madrid with 18!"
This article was initially published on Urban Mobility Daily, the blog of Paris’ Autonomy show. The Micromobility Conference, a unique gathering of international micromobility actors, was held on January 31st in Richmond, California. I decided to travel from Paris to California to check it out and to better understand the trends and challenges of …
Continue reading "A takeaway from the Micromobility Conference"
Two piece of news have been published in the last couple of days. The easy conclusions being that the rise of e-scooter sharing signed the end of bike-sharing. But how true is that? First an inventory of the private transit services available in Denver, CO: ride-hailing with Uber and Lyft, bike-share with B-Cycle (docked), …
Continue reading "Is e-scooter-share cannibalizing bike-share?"
Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) launched its E-scooter pilot program in july 2018, having set a permitting framework focusing on 4 critical objectives: Reduce traffic congestion by shifting trips away from private motor vehicle use Prevent fatalities and serious injuries on Portland streets Expand access to opportunities for underserved Portlanders Reduce air pollution, including climate …
Continue reading "Portland’s E-scooter pilot program review"
Every reader here already knows the main problem that cities want to address when dockless shared-mobility operators are coming in its streets. Angry drivers lost in a sea of scooters and bicycles, yes, but most of all: indiscriminate parking! The trend is clearly going towards securising and organising the parked vehicles. It has been emphasized …
Continue reading "Where is the parking spot? About indiscriminate parking."
With the raise of dockless shared-mobility solutions around the globe, cities are trying to take advantage of the amount of data collected through the smartphone’s apps. Urban planners are willing to analyse those data to understand and forecast flows, plan and design new infrastructures, monitor the supply and demand, with the final goal to integrate …
Continue reading "A call for data standardization towards shared-mobility providers"
Let’s take two evident contemporary trends: The future of bike-share will include more and more E-bikes! The economic situation implies that bike-share schemes will get less grants or subsidies, and will therefore have to become more financially efficient. The equation seems hard to solve as E-bike fleets operation is of course more expensive …
Continue reading "A solution to improve E-bike-share operation"
Every morning, when you turn on your computer, I guess you really wonder what news you’ll get on the mobility sector. That’s how I feel. The current moves from ALL actors (E-scooter/bike/scooter/car manufacturers, shared solution providers, software and tech companies…) are changing the landscape everyday. Focusing on bike-share only, last year saw Uber buying Jump …
Continue reading "Perpetual motion in shared-mobility… towards walled gardens"
The third edition of Paris’ Autonomy show took place in La Grande Halle de La Villette, on october 18-20th 2018. The show is dedicated to urban mobility from LEV’s to (even flying) cars. It quickly became a not-to-be-missed show where many actors are displaying there innovations. This year conferences and exhibitors confirmed the main trends …
Continue reading "Feedback from Paris’ Autonomy show"
Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced on september 28th that it will grant licenses to six operators of dockless bike-share services by the end of october (The measure was announced in march 2018). Full licenses have been granted to Ofo Mobike and SGBike, while Anywheel, Grab Cycle and Qiqi Zhixiang will get sandbox licenses, and will …
Continue reading "Six companies to operate in Singapore under the new license regime"
Not much information so far, but LimeBike is looking for Juicers to manage the charging of their Lime-S scooters! Basically, a Juicer will be a LimeBike contractor, whose mission will be to: pickup specified low battery scooters with their own vehicles charge it in their own buildings deploy it in the morning where LimeBike …
Continue reading "Will citizens charge dockless E-bikes and E-scooters?"
I already highlighted Singapore’s pioneering way of regulating dockless bike-share schemes on its territory, already 3 months ago. LTA introduced a MOU to operators in order to control parking behaviour, data sharing and service for the 100 000 bikes operated by 6 companies (oBike, ofo, Mobike, GBikes, SG Bike and ShareBikeSG). But still, we discovered …
Continue reading "Singapore is still improving its dockless bike-share regulation"
Bike-sharing is developing fast currently, but is always using classical adult bikes. When you look at the diversity in the bike market, with cargo, trikes, recumbents, handibikes… you can see that their are a lot of other possibilities, to adapt to more user and more usage. Of course, I’m not asking for big scale schemes, …
Continue reading "Let’s open our minds: All-kinds-of-bike-sharing"
Bikeshare-news.com was present at ECF’s PEBSS workshop 2017 in Brussels on november 20th-21st. We will produce several articles in the following month to report the main ideas that have been emphasized during these two days. Second chapter: thoughts around dockless bike-sharing. Guess what…. the central topic of the PEBSS workshop was dockless bike-share! …
Continue reading "Echoes from PEBSS workshop 2017 #2: talk about dockless bike-share"
Mobike has recently been named in the 2017 Champions of the Earth by the United Nations Environment, “in recognition of the company’s transformative contribution to the advancement of low carbon public transport”. This sentence opens the debate, as the environmental impact of a public transport has to measure the production, operation, and recycling cost. With …
Continue reading "Mobike named “Champions of the Earth” by the United Nations Environment"
Bikeshare-news.com was present at ECF’s PEBSS workshop 2017 in Brussels on november 20th-21st. We will produce several articles in the following month to report the main ideas that have been emphasized during these two days. First chapter: data. A word was coming quite often during the different talks, surrounded with mystery: DATA ! …
Continue reading "Echoes from PEBSS workshop 2017 #1 : DATA"
It’s one of the first reports with a proper data analysis that have been published about dockless bike-sharing, about the pilot program launched in Seattle where Spin, LimeBike, Ofo are operating 6000 bikes. The Seattle department of transport (SDOT) released the first data analysis after the first two months of operation. And well, looking …
Continue reading "First feedback from the dockless bike-share pilot in Seattle!"
As bike-sharing is getting more mature, the question of equity is becoming central for authorities in order to allow low-income citizens to benefit from the local bike-sharing schemes. And YES it can be totally free: Pittsburgh’s Port Authority (transportation authority) and Healthy Ride (bike-share operator) announced unlimited free 15 minutes rides to anyone with a …
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Restrictions are coming for dockless bike-sharing firms… even in the mothermarket of China! Chinese authorities have banned any expansion of the existing fleet, trying to answer parking chaos, traffic congestion and public safety concerns in 13 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Guangzhou. It is one explanation to the big move of the 2nd half of …
Continue reading "China’s regulation with dockless bikes"
I was writing previously about helmets in station-based schemes. But the development of dockless bike-sharing in Australia, with Ofo recently launching 400 bikes in Sydney, raised the same question for providers: Do I have to provide helmet with my bike? How can I provide it? Most of the companies, Ofo included, answered yes …
Continue reading "Speaking of helmets… Dockless in Australia"
When you think about cyclist safety, you first think about helmets. And in every country, the debate around mandatory helmet lawson bicycles are… intense. Boom! For sure it has an incidence on the bike-sharing usage and business. There is a just 4 station-based bike-share programs in places under mandatory helmet laws: Seattle’s Pronto. …
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As every city confronted with dockless bike sharing, Singapore faced major troubles with parking. And as you may know, Singapore government likes order and cleanliness… So they didn’t wait for anarchy, but instead invited all parties around the table: The public authorities: Land Transport Authorities (LTA), the National Parks Board (NParks) and all 16 …
Continue reading "How is Singapour dealing with dockless bike sharing"
An unprecedented wave… Well, don’t be afraid, we are only talking about bike sharing… But since spring 2017, the occidental world is more and more frightened by two words coming from China: Mobike and Ofo! In fact these two chinese companies have globally shaking up the bike sharing world in only a couple of months, …
Continue reading "Yellow (and red) peril in bike sharing…"