Issue #38 — Brought to you by Michal Naka and Adam Feldman. Join thousands of others who receive this weekly analysis and curation of emerging mobility news in their inbox every week — subscribe now.
Micromobility
Bird launched its ‘Platform’ in Auckland, New Zealand with Wave Scooters as the first operator. Since the original announcement last fall, the Bird Platform offering has evolved in two significant ways: 1) Removed access to Bird’s network of chargers and mechanics. 2) Operators now get exclusive rights to each market. | NZ Herald
Uber is looking to add cameras to its scooters and bikes for safety, deterrent to vandalism, and for greater accuracy while tracking down vehicles. | Stuff
Korean messaging app Kakao, launched an eBike sharing service. “The e-bike campaign arrives after Kakao’s latest attempts to venture into the carpooling service were thwarted due to fierce backlash from the taxi community.” | Pulse
Scooter operator Beam is running a pilot with food delivery company Food Panda to give couriers access to micromobility options. | Beam
Lyft lays off 50 employees as it reorganizes its scooter and bike divison. | The Information
Throwback: Scooters invade downtown Atlanta in 1916. (Thanks Spencer from The Prepared!) | AJC
Lego Bikeshare. | Lego
Bird and Lime are taking very different approaches to growth. | The Information
China
Chinese mobility companies faced a rough ride throughout 2018, from Ofo’s cash problems to Didi’s challenges with assault and regulatory issues. Maybe there’re a few lessons Western firms can learn? | TechNode
Mobike continues to cut back international markets. | Techcrunch
Ridehailing
How Via benefits from new regulations that hurt Uber and Lyft. | Crains
Taxify rebrands as ‘Bolt’ as it aims to be a multimodal transportation platform for Europe. | Techcrunch
As ridehailing proliferates at airports around the world, the pickup experience is rapidly deteriorating. Uber is trying to combat that with a new pilot at SFO where riders can get picked up in a nearby parking garage and save $3 dollars. Can’t wait to see this on city streets, too! | Uber
What happens if regulators require Uber and Lyft to hire their drivers? “One person who has been briefed on such calculations at Uber said that company has projected it could be profitable if they’re forced to hire drivers as employees but revenue could contract or slow dramatically as part-time drivers drop off.” | The Information
A look into Grab’s new feature to redistribute demand to ‘non-peak’ periods. | Tech In Asia
Fundraising & Deals
Grab raised an additional $1.5 billion from SoftBank, taking their Series H round to $4.5 billion. The ridehaling firm has raised nearly $9 billion since 2012. | VentureBeat
Hammerhead raised a $4.2 million seed round to build an OS for bikes. | Techcrunch
Hyundai looks to invest up to $300 million into India’s Ola cab. | Economic Times
FlixBus, a European bus operations platform, is buying Eurolines, a long-distance bus service, from TransDev. | TechCrunch
Cities & Policy
A disability rights group sued San Diego over scooters being ridden and parked on the sidewalk, claiming the new vehicles cause discrimination against people with disabilities. In response, Lime says its “convening an industry-wide education and safety summit on micromobility.” The summit will include disability rights leaders and will focus on “making sure that these micromobility models thrive in a very safe environment.”| NPR
The UK releases a national Future of Mobility report. | Gov.UK
Closing central Madrid to cars results in a 9.5% increase in retail spending | Forbes
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