Movements | February 12th, 2020
Issue #82 - Brought to you by Michal Naka and Adam Feldman. Join thousands of others who receive this analysis and curation of emerging mobility news in their inbox every week — subscribe now.
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Micromobility
German insurance provider DEVK is lowering private e-scooter insurance premiums in 2020 by up to 40% after finding the vehicles “are involved in fewer accidents than expected”. (Link in German) | Fabian Ladda
An overview of the micromobility IoT ecosystem: “The IOT on scooters and bikes are notorious for being difficult to deal with. All of the major IOT providers we've tested have issues with sending corrupt data, dropping connection, and malfunctioning.” | Spring
From researchers in the UK: How legalizing e-scooters will save lives, bust congestion and help the environment. | Adam Smith Institute
An excellent recap of the panels at the Moving the Future Conference. | Samuel Clay
Fantastic podcast interview with Skip’s CEO, Sanjay Dastoor, on the future of micromobility, government regulations, and the deep challenges with the hardware supply chain. "There's a misalignment between who's building the scooters and who is buying them... we have to build custom hardware from scratch, we have to vertically integrate every piece to hit safety and reliability targets." | Micromobility
Here’s what shared micromobility sales looked like in the US at the end of 2019.. | Second Measure
Product Launches & Updates
Bird’s new “Frequent Flyer” loyalty program gets detailed in the company’s FAQs. The program appears to be in pilot mode in select markets and rewards riders who take multiple trips per month with free unlocks during certain hours, reservations, and ride discounts. | Bird
Uber is testing a new feature called “Make My Train”, where riders can request and schedule rides to public transit stations based on their desired trains departure time. “All arrival times and prices are estimates. Transit information, prices, routes, and schedules are estimates and provided by a third party, and Uber cannot guarantee their accuracy or your on time arrival.” | The Verge
Bird’s new ‘parking preferred’ product in Paris helps riders end their ride in approved parking spaces to improve compliance with city rules. However, before you go asking companies to build a feature to solve parking issues, it’s important to remember that Paris is building 2,500 designated spots across the city for dockless vehicles and already has a supply of moped and motorcycle parking spots. “Unsurprisingly, the use of preferred parking is lower where parking spots are sparse.” | Bird
An excellent interview with Google Maps’ Jen Fitzpatrck. | Wired
Ridehailing & Carsharing
Who is on top of the US ridehailing battle? According to Second Measure’s December 2019 data, Uber holds 70% and Lyft has 29% of monthly sales in the US. | Second Measure
Uber claims it's the ridehailing market leader in India. | Techcrunch
On their earnings call, Uber projects profitability by end of 2020. | WSJ
A look at Grab’s advertising business. | Tech In Asia
Investment & Deals
Bond raised $15 million to bring last mile deliveries and ‘nano-distribution’ centers to online retailers. | Venture Beat
Shell invested in transit fare and payment startup Masabi, who provides public transit mobile ticketing SDKs to consumer apps like Transit and Uber. | Masabi
Laka, a UK-based, cycling insurance startup raises a seed round. | altfi
OptimoRoute, a service for commercial vehicle routing and tracking, raises $6.5m. | TechCrunch
Cities & Policy
Vancouver, Canada is now allowing electric bikes onto public transit buses. | TransLink
A City of Atlanta survey finds that micromobility riders and non-riders alike are asking for “more safe places to ride” to improve safety. “Interestingly, about a third of respondents said they’d never tried riding an e-scooter and had no interest in doing so, but the consensus was that the travel option should stay, so long as regulations improve.” | Curbed
A look at one of the major issues holding back the growth of public transit in the US: a shortage of drivers. | WSJ
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