by Innovative Mobility Research | Jun 22, 2018 |
June 21, 2018 BY: BENJAMIN SCHEIDER Can e-bikes, electric scooters, velomobiles, and other battery-boosted mobility gizmos really rid the city of the private car? The public reaction to the arrival of dockless bikes and electric scooters in U.S. cities can be tracked in stages. The first stage, for many, was annoyance. Who were these grown men and women on candy-colored bikes and teeny kick-scooters speeding down the streets and sidewalks, menacing walkers and leaving their rented toys all over the place? Especially in San Francisco, where this whimsical new mobility mode has taken off, scooters have come to represent yet another example of tech industry entitlement, another way for a startup to move fast and break stuff. Read the rest of the article...
by Innovative Mobility Research | Jun 1, 2018 |
May 31, 2018 By: SARAH MASLIN NIR Losing a handful of street parking spots along a stretch of Upper Manhattan may seem like relatively little to give up. But in the blood sport that is parking in New York, Elisa Ferreira, who was pushing her son, Mason, in a stroller through Hamilton Heights on a recent weekday, said that the 20 spots the city plans to remove from her neighborhood will just make the ordeal even worse. “It’s already really hard to find parking” Ms. Ferreira said. “It’s only going to be harder for us.’’ Starting Monday, as part of its campaign to expand transportation options, the city is taking away about 300 parking spots in more than a dozen neighborhoods, mostly outside of Manhattan, and reserving them exclusively for vehicles from car-share companies, like Zipcar. It is the first time the companies, which currently keep their inventory in parking garages, will be allowed to store cars on city streets. Read the rest of the article...
by Innovative Mobility Research | Apr 10, 2018 |
April 10, 2018 BY: KATIE FEHRENBACHER The big daddy of ride sharing, Uber, has officially jumped into electric bike sharing. On Monday Uber announced that it has acquired Jump Bikes, a ten-year-old venture capital-backed startup that rents out dockless electric bicycles to users around cities. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but a report from last week said that an acquisition was worth over $100 million. So why has Uber, with its $72 billion valuation and deep global reach, suddenly noticed the company that’s been managing 250 neon red e-bikes in its backyard for a few months (as well as thousands of non-electric bikes in other cities)? It’s a combination of the right timing for the mobility market, the evolution of the wireless computing and battery technology, and the right positioning for a friendlier Uber (along with a few other things). Read the rest of the article here: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/why-uber-buying-e-bike-sharing-startup-jump-bikes ...
by Innovative Mobility Research | Apr 10, 2018 |
April 10, 2018 By: AARIAN MARSHALL JUMP BIKES HAS a new owner: Uber. The bike-sharing company, launched as Social Bicycles in 2011, runs GPS-enabled programs in twelve cities all over the world, including Portland, Oregon, and Phoenix, Arizona. In San Francisco, Jump’s offerings are both electric and dockless—twin cycling innovations that helped kick off a nationwide (and global) bike-sharing craze. The acquisition is a signal that Uber doesn’t want to be seen as just a taxi substitute, but an urban mobility company. “We’re committed to bringing together multiple modes of transportation within the Uber app—so that you can choose the fastest or most affordable way to get where you’re going, whether that’s in an Uber, on a bike, on the subway, or more,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wrote in a blog post. This isn’t a new concept for the ride-hailing company: In February, Khosrowshahi said he hoped to one day use Uber’s platform to run a city’s bus system. Read the full article...
by Innovative Mobility Research | Mar 15, 2018 |
March 15, 2018 By: Eli Wirtschafter San Francisco has made a sweeping change in how much it costs to park in the city. Prices at some meters could sink down to 50 cents an hour. But at other meters, they could rise to eight dollars an hour, depending on the time of day, and how popular the location is. The policy is designed to free up parking space. But due to the explosion of ride-hailing, it may not be improving the way people get around the city. Listen to the full segment...
