Movements | February 6th, 2020
Issue #81 - 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.
Micromobility
Swedish automotive supplier, Autoliv, demonstrates a crash-test of an embedded kick scooter airbag. “The tested concept airbag for e-scooters will complement the Pedestrian Protection Airbag, PPA, previously introduced by Autoliv. Whereas the airbag for e-scooters is mounted on the e-scooter, the PPA is mounted on a vehicle and deploys along the A-pillar/windshield area.” Although this is cool, maybe we could design safer streets? | Autoliv
Mobility intelligence startup Flucto did a deep dive into shared micromobility usage during the French Transit strikes in December and January. Not surprising, vehicle demand spiked, trip lengths increased, and field operations problems were persistent. | Fluctuo
NFL legend John Elway spotted on a Lime traveling through Denver. | Twitter
A Toyota dealership in Barcelona has a fleet of scooters for customers to use when their car is getting serviced. | Miguel Cabrera
Electric board and scooter startup Boosted has been struggling with vehicle delays and import tariffs. | The Verge
Product Launches & Updates
Apple Maps finally completes its refresh of the continental US. | Justin Obeirne
Bird rolls out the Bird Two vehicle in San Francisco under the Scoot brand. The Bird Two has been testing on the streets for the last 6 months in Los Angeles. | Techcrunch
Yandex is launching a bike-powered grocery delivery service in Moscow. | Bloomberg
Google Maps celebrates 15 years and launches a major redesign with tons of new features, including dedicated Explore and Commute tabs. | Google
The latest beta for iOS 13.4 has a CarKey feature that supports unlocking and starting cars via NFC. | 9to5Mac
Ridehailing & Carsharing
Can ridehailing really replace your car? According to this in-depth analysis, the numbers say if you drive less than 10,000 miles, maybe... “I moved to Los Angeles 6 months ago from Kentucky. I left my beloved Subaru Outback in the hands of my younger brother and decided that I would forge through LA carless — a sin to most Angelenos.” | Kyla Scanlon
Uber has suspended the accounts of 240 Mexican users who had been exposed to drivers who were in contact with a suspected coronavirus case. | Bloomberg
There’s been a major management shakeup at Didi. | The Information
Investment & Deals
HopSkipDrive raised a $22 million dollar round to expand its scheduled rides to school service for children and families. | HopSkipDrive
Dubai-based cloud kitchen startup Kitopi raised $60 million. | FT
Wheels acquired Spanish scooter startup Mygo in an effort to jumpstart its European micromobility business. | Hipertextual
Uber and DoorDash held merger talks last year. | CNBC
Axle raises a seed round from Trucks and others to modernize factor financing for truckers. | Business Insider
More details on Amazon’s EV van partnership with Rivian. | Slashgear
Cities & Policy
U of Tasmania professor Elaine Stratford makes the case that it’s time to rethink Australian Road Rules because of micromobility. “The current debate is based on outdated assumptions about transport, transport technology and road users, and that it is now time to rethink the assumptions underpinning the Australian Road Rules.” | The Conversation
Our friends at the City of Portland are hiring a Shared Micromobility Coordinator! | Portland
Paris has some ambitious plans to become even more bike friendly. | Forbes
Swiftly interviewed over 100 transit professionals across the USA to compile the 2020 State of Transit slide deck. Some highlights include: executives list reliability as a top concern, accurate real-time information is key to improving ridership, operational issues are the main blockers for reliability, and high frequency transit doesn’t seem to get enough attention. | Swiftly
Andy Byford has resigned as head of NYC’s transit system amid repeated meddling and clashes with the governor. This is a major loss for the city and transit in North America. We’ll miss you, Andy! | NYTimes
Yet another city is becoming more bike friendly: Denver is building a further 125 miles of bike lanes. | Denver Post
San Antonio seems to be following Seattle’s lead by working to increase frequency of bus service all over the city. And guess what? Increased frequency leads to increased ridership: “wait times on popular routes have been reduced dramatically, some down to every 12 minutes. That's produced ridership gains of over 20 percent”. | NEWS4SA