Movements | March 13th, 2020

Mar 13, 2020

Issue #86 - 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

Uber announced its next generation custom designed JUMP scooter in Paris earlier this week. The vehicle design borrows a lot from the JUMP eBike and features puncture resistant tires, two mechanical drum brakes, a double kickstand, and new anti-theft technology. Most importantly, the scooter has swappable batteries that are interchangeable with a JUMP eBike. | Uber

Lime made a second round of staff cuts this year in an effort to streamline its US operations. | The Information
Bird and Plume labs pair up to capture air quality data in Paris. | Bird
New research on the relationship between bike-sharing and ridehailing: ”Our results show that banning Uber caused a significant decrease in usage among frequent users especially on weekdays, suggesting a complementary relationship between these services. On the other hand, our findings indicate that ad hoc users mainly use BSS and Uber as substitutes.” | Transportation Research

Product Launches & Updates

Bird launches the Cruiser moped in Austin, Texas under the ‘Scoot’ brand. | Electrek
Instacart and Postmate launch ‘non-contact deliveries’ in the wake of the coronavirus. Related: Voi gives riders coronavirus guidelines. | Postmates
Citymapper now lets NYC users see which subway stations accept contactless payments. | Citymapper
Hip, a new commuter shuttle service connecting NYC with Northern New Jersey, has dramatically expanded its service area. | Hip

Ridehailing & Carsharing

Uber is developing an ‘Uber for Kids’ service for transporting unaccompanied minors. | The Information
Uber and Lyft give drivers guidelines to help prevent the spread of Coronavirus. | The Verge
Didi’s daily active users in China dropped by 50% after the coronavirus outbreak. “If you look at China, the experience is that limiting people’s mobility is an effective way to cut off the spread of the epidemic,” said Mr Yang. “If the world takes a similar approach, there will be many fewer orders for Uber and Lyft.” | Financial Times

Does ridehailing cause more car crashes and deaths? Economist Joe Cortright lays out the reasons why this may not be the case: “While this paper raises important and provocative questions, it fails to convince us that ride-hailing is responsible for the increasing in crash rates in the US. Its proxy for ride-hailing activity is weak, and it relies on heavily aggregated data that are unlikely to directly reflect the effects of ride-hailing, and which are likely to be contaminated by other factors.” | City Observatory

Investment & Deals

Next STEP for mobility startups: “After years of seemingly limitless investment in mobility startups seeking to disrupt the $7 trillion transportation industry, our promised future utopian vision of connected, autonomous, shared, electric — CASE — technologies seems to get further away each day.” | Automotive News
Ride Report raises a $10m series A from Unusual Ventures. | TechCrunch

Cities & Policy

An epic, must read piece by Aaron Gordon on “Why the US Sucks at Building Public Transit” | Vice

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